9 REMARKS ON THE FIGURE OF PLATE XLIX. 
the effect is the same as if, after having been developed, it 
were again subtracted. Under those ideas all fashions of 
endo-skeleton produced im the four great classes may be 
interpreted, when it will be seen that all variety is only 
minus quantity arrested in some one stage of development 
between extreme minus and the plus integer or archetype 
quantity. 
As, in general, the adult stage of the individual skeleton 
figure is plus compared with all prior stages of that form 
in process of growth, so must the adult stage be accounted 
archetype of all the earlier minus stages. And upon a 
general survey of the skeleton quantities of the four classes, 
as we discover that variety is alone produced by minus 
proportioning, subtraction of quantity, metamorphosis, or 
arrest of development, all effecting the same thing, so 
have we chosen to regard that skeleton which is plus of 
all the series of class and species, as the archetype, or 
integer, or fullest quantity. For, compared with this skele- 
ton archetype, it will be seen that all varieties are but as 
minus quantities. 
Now the skeleton form which is destined to be sym- 
metrically produced at adult age, is deposited in the em- 
bryonic stage also symmetrically. The law of serial and 
symmetrical arrangement governs nucleary deposition as 
well as. adult fashionmg. And, though it appears most 
true, that all skeleton species are but as the varieties 
of plus and minus, the archetype unity under metamor- 
phosis, still, itis not correct to say that skeleton forms of 
the higher animal classes have passed through stages of 
development similar to the adult stages of all the lower 
elasses. It is not correct to say that the mammal skeleton 
form was, at one stage of growth, identical with a bird, a 
reptile, or a fish; for we see that the adult cast of every 
species is previously sketched out in its embryonic condi- 
tion. ‘Two skeleton quantities, which, at adult age, mani- 
fest the plus and minus condition, have, even at the feetal 
stage of development, been also plus and minus as to ele- 
mentary quantity. The opposite figure of a human fetal 
skeleton is, even at this stage of growth, indicative of the 
adult human form and no other. 
The common median line bisects the foetal skeleton as 
completely as that of the adult. The foetal skeleton, indeed, 
is already naturally cleft through the median line. The 
parietal bones /, the frontal bones n, the temporal bones 
m, and the maxille, are all bipartite at birth. This median 
lme passes through the centre of k, the occipital bone ; 
through 7 2, the basilar element ; through h, the sphcenoid 
bone ; through f, the vomer ; through e, the palate bones ; 
through d, the incisors of the upper maxilla; through c, | 
the incisors of the lower maxilla; through 0, the sternal 
pieces ; through all the serial homologous elements of the 
primitive spinal chain marked 1,2, 3; and through all the 
costal forms in series from a to a. 
The pectoral limbs marked 9, p, g, 7, s, are symmetrical 
opposites *. The pelvic organs marked #, u, v, w, 2, y, 2, 
are symmetrical opposites also. All the elementary pieces 
happening on one side of the median line, are repeated by 
homologues on the opposite side, and all the serial homo- 
logous pieces, such as those marked 3, or 2, or 1, are 
representatives of each other. The costal forms are also 
laid im serial order, and thus we see that the law of series, 
as well as the law of symmetry, are creative of homologues. 
If we name the symmetrical rib of one side a, and that 
of the other side 4, this difference of name does not spoil 
them of their identity as to form; nor if we name the 
costa of series as a, and another of the same series as 4, does 
this difference of title deprive them of their homologous 
cast. Serial order, as well as symmetrical order, expresses 
the homology of form, whether it be of fcetal or adult 
growth. 
Every animal skeleton, at every phasis of its progressive 
development, may be accounted an integer or plus quantity 
compared with all its prior stages. Every adult human 
skeleton is a sum-total or whole quantity which may be 
said to contain the infinite phaseal variety of all its earlier 
and minus conditions of growth. Every fetal and all 
immature stages of formation are, to the adult normal 
cast of form, in that same ratio which every past stage of 
the now adult figure bears to this same figure. Every 
form, as it at present stands, is various to all those prior 
conditions in which it once stood. 
which is, is special to what it formerly was, and special 
also to what in future it will be. There is nothing fixed 
in Nature. There is no death chemically speaking, and 
there is no staid endurance to any phasis of development 
anatomically speaking; for is it not absolutely thus? 
Variety is infinite; the individual form is a history of . 
infinite variety ; and who, therefore, shall number the 
osseous elements of any skeleton fabric? Where is 
the integer or whole quantity of form? To this we answer 
that the adult stage of every being is the entirety to all its 
immature phases of growth; and when we ask, where is 
the whole quantity of all special varieties which stamp the 
infinite characters of all individual forms, we answer, that 
it is the plus sum or archetype which we are proceeding in 
search of, for in the degradation of this quantity may be 
seen the infinite operation of a law. 
* “Tl y a des os, qui seuls sont symétriques, c’est-a-dire, qui ont une certaine réciprocité de cété et d’autre—ces os sont impairs et placés 
dans le milieu, qui distingue la partie droite du corps de la partie gauche. 
Tous les autres os, pris séparément, n’ont point de symétrie ; mais 
chacun d’eux, pris avec celui qui lui répond de Vautre cote, fait une figure réguliére; ces os sont pairs et placés 4 droite et 4 gauche.”—Winslow, 
Exposition Anatomique de la Structure du Corps Humain. 
+ Authors are not unanimous as to the number of bones proper to the normal cast of adult human formation. Not only does the numerical 
method transcend the labours of the Anthropotamist by the variation of the number of osseous pieces which are seen to compose the being at different 
stages of its development, but it is also a fact that manifold varieties, in this respect, characterise two or more adult human skeletons. Hence, 
we find Meckel numbering the bones to the amount of 253, Monro and Semmering reckoning them as 260, others as 197, and Cruveilheir 198. 
The uncertainty and confusion which attends this mode of computation is mainly owing to the circumstance of a separation holding perma- 
nently between two or more osseous pieces which, in other forms, obey the law of fluxion, 
Hence, every form 
