67 
REVIEWS. 
PKOFESSOE OWEN’S ANATOMY.* 
E OE more than two years we have waited patiently for the appearance of 
the volume completing Professor Owen’s treatise on Vertebrate Ana- 
tomy, and now that it has been issued, we must confess to being disap- 
pointed with it as a whole. We do not mean to imply that the book 
which is now before us is inferior to those which have preceded it, or that 
it is devoid of value or interest. But we had expected to find in it that 
the author had done justice to those fellow-labourers in the field of science 
whom he had previously overlooked or misinterpreted, and we are sorry 
to see that our anticipations have been unfulfilled. Nay, more than this, 
we find the author still ignoring the labours of our ablest anatomists, still 
slurring over the grave objections that have been urged against his 
views, and still indulging that bitter invective and that caustic sarcasm 
which we are accustomed to look upon as indisseverable from his writings. 
Further, indeed, we perceive that he has gone out of his way to expend 
his vituperative powers in a most unfair attack upon ourselves, because, in 
€ommon with the London Reviewer,” we were the first to show that he not 
only admitted the fact-basis of Mr. Darwin’s theory, but even went so far as to 
lay claim to being the originator of the theory itself. It would be needless to 
attempt now any justification of the course we then adopted; the mere fact 
that in the last edition of his Origin of Species ” Mr. Darwin fully recog- 
nises our position is quite sufiicient for us. If further explanation were 
required, it would be found in the very attack to which we refer, since 
Professor Owen’s remarks, when divested of that obscurity characteristic 
of his singularly verbose mode of expression, adequately support the belief 
which we still contend for, that Professor Owen has admitted all facts 
on which the theory of natural selection is based. It is for the above rea- 
sons, then, that we confess our disappointment. 
In an analysis of the portion of the volume devoted to anatomical 
considerations we shall be as brief as possible, avoiding quotation because of 
the author’s wordy mode of description and inexact and tedious style. The 
third volume continues the subject of mammalian anatomy dealt within the 
second, and treats upon the nervous, circulating, respiratory, alimentaiy. 
* “ The Anatomy of Yertebrates,” Vol. III., Mammals. By Richard Owen, 
F.R.S. London : Longmans, 1868. 
