2 REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE L. 
know the sum of quantity subtracted from either fig. K or 
fig. L, but on the contrary, we turn at once to the full 
human skeleton form; and it is this plus design which 
tells us that varying quantities are lost to figs. K and L, 
which renders them thus various to each other as to 
quantity, and various also to the complete human skeleton 
as to quantity, but still we clearly identify the parts stand- 
ing for each, as not being new creations. This is unity 
rendered various by metamorphosis or subtraction, and 
it is the knowledge of the normal plus human quantity 
which informs us how much is minus to figs. K and L. 
Therefore, it is self-evident that if we had to characterise 
unity between figs. K and L and the plus human skeleton, 
we must turn to the latter, and knowing it to be plus, 
call it the archetype unity of the minus figs. K and L. 
Now, it is just by the same simple process of compara- 
tive reasoning that we are to learn the figure of that 
archetype quantity of a skeleton which is unity or plus 
to all special skeleton varieties, which latter are but the 
several minus proportionals of such a plus archetype. Fig. 
K is not now equal to fig. L, but still both can be rendered 
equal when both are equated with the normal plus skeleton 
quantity, for this quantity is archetype of them. There is 
in Nature a plus archetype skeleton form, from which 
Nature subtracts quantity, and thus creates proportional 
variety, and it is only by a rule of equation held between 
every skeleton minus quantity and the plus archetype that we 
can ever hope to regard unity, or estimate the law of design. 
There is a broad difference between accidental subtrac- 
tion of skeleton quantity and that which Nature designedly 
performs upon her prime model or archetype, and it is 
this, namely, that where we ourselves, or unmeaning acci- 
dent, occasion an absence of parts or hiatus in full quan- 
tity, we but lessen. form without increasing fitness; we 
subtract form and at the same time we annihilate design, 
as, for example, fig. K or L; but where, on the contrary, 
Nature subtracts quantity from her plus archetype, she 
still creates her all-perfect marvels of design. She oblite- 
rates the costal quantity from some mammalian skeletons, 
and creates for these the regions of a cervix and lumbar 
spine, which regions are not found in certain other 
skeleton figures, because the plus archetype of costo-ver- 
tebral series still fittingly persists for these, and hence the 
cervix is wanting. 
The part is ever expressive of the whole quantity, when 
once we have known the whole. Even the part, at primi- 
tive stages of development, expresses the whole history of 
genetic changes destined to take place afterwards in the 
lifetime of the being, when once we know this history. 
Thus fig. C, a foetal sternum, suggests the whole history 
of sternal growth through which it is destined (according 
to the immutable law) to pass. Figs. C, B, and A, are serial 
genetic changes for sternal form, from foetal condition to 
the octogenarian stage. ; 
We say that our ideas of a part are inseparable from 
that contmued enchainment of ideas which encompasses 
the whole form, whether this latter be present or absent. 
It is impossible to regard either fig. D, E, F, G, H, or I, 
separately from the idea of that entire connected skeleton 
quantity of which those figures are the parts. An articular 
surface invariably suggests the idea of some other skeleton 
element with which that surface articulates, and thus 
it is that the mind cannot choose but to rise to the 
survey of a whole quantity. 
That part which, by accident or human interference, 
has been separated from an entire quantity, could not 
have been produced in Nature isolatedly. Fig. F, the 
sacrum, and fig. D, the ilio-pubie bone, are elemental 
parts, which have been created within an animal economy... 
They can have no other proper name than that of being 
parts of the human skeleton entirety, therefore we cannot 
view them rationally without their suggesting the idea 
of a whole quantity. | 
The skeleton unity of the four animal classes must also 
be a full quantity or archetype. Unity can only properly 
attach to a skeleton archetype. Plus quantities are those 
only which, being equal to each other, can be said to 
contain elemental quantity homologous to all minus pro- 
portionals of themselves. It is very true that two or more 
equal proportionals may be accounted as homologous to 
each other as two or more archetypes are to each other ; 
but then the name proportional demands of what whole 
form the element thus named is the part. Two or more 
semicircles are homologues of each other, as well as two 
or more circles are of each other, but the archetype quan- 
tity of semicircles and segments is the circle; and so, the 
fullest. skeleton quantity in Nature must be the archetype 
of all skeleton proportionals, whether these proportionals 
result by natural subtraction from archetype quantity or. 
by aceident. Ifthe archetype quantity be unity, then the 
part of such a quantity cannot be unity. 
In figs. K and L*, we have marked similar pieces with 
the same letters, and both figures, as they present them- 
selves, can have their lost quantity restored by comparison 
with the perfect human skeleton type. Now, the complete 
human skeleton itself, however perfect it may be as to 
design and fitness, is nevertheless to be regarded as a pro- 
portional of the skeleton archetype; and it is in this light 
only that we can clearly comprehend its present design, 
and the law of its formation. 
* These figures represent the two fossilized human skeletons “découverts 4 la Guadaloupe dans une rocher formée de parcelles de 
madrépores rejétees par la mer et unies par un suc caleaire.” Our object in copying them was merely for what we have described in the text. 
They have been found embedded im a rock, which though it would require the thunderbolts of natural truth to split and give egress to the 
spirit of truthful interpretation therein immured, and watching over the contents, has been readily dissolved and rendered light as air by the 
touchstone of that reputation which surrounds the name of Cuvier preceding the following assertion—“ TI] est certain qu’on.n’a pas encore trouvé d’os 
_ humains parmi les fossiles; et c’est une preuve de plus que les races fossiles n’étaient point des varietés, puisqu’elles n’ayaient pu subir 
Vinfluence de Vhomme. Je dis que l’on n’a jamais trouvé d’os humains parmi les fossiles, bien entendu parmi les fossiles proprement dits, ou, 
en d’autres termes, dans les couches réguliéres de la surface du globe; car dans les tourbitres, dans les alluvions, comme dans les cimetiéres, 
on pourrait aussi bien déterrer des os humains que des os de cheyaux ou d’autres espéces vulgaires ; il pourrait s’en trouver également dans des 
fentes de rocher, dans des grottes ot la stalactite se serait amoncélée sur eux; mais dans les lits qui recélent les anciennes races, parmi les 
paleothériums, et méme parmi les éléphants et les rhinocéros, on n’a jamais découyert le moindre ossement humain.”—Cuvier, “ Discowrs 
sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe,” sixieme edition Frangaise, p. 135, 
