28 o 
OWEN’S POSITION IN 
Thus the idea of a scale of organised beings fore- 
shadows the conception of a more or less widely 
prevailing unity of organisation among them, and 
we may regard the promulgation and wide accept- 
ances of Bonnet’s doctrine of the ‘ scale of beings ’ 
as the dawn of the higher morphology of modern 
times. 
Though but an imperfect apprehension of a 
great truth, this doctrine exerted a highly bene- 
ficial influence upon the progress of comparative 
anatomy. The gradations in structure of the 
parts and organs of animals were carefully studied. 
Immense pains were bestowed on the formation 
of collections of preparations illustrative, of grada- 
tion ; and there is no more remarkable example 
of such a collection than that formed by the skill 
and industry of John Hunter, which was the 
origin, and still constitutes the nucleus, of the 
present admirably complete museum of the Royal 
College of Surgeons of England. A full descrip- 
dve catalogue of such a collection must needs be, 
m itself, an encyclopaedia of comparative anatomy. 
Daubenton, the collaborator of Buffon in France, 
went to work upon a different, but quite as 
important, principle. As Buffon opposed the ex- 
treme systematizers, who seemed to think it the 
end of science, not so much to know about an 
object as to be able to name it and fit it into 
^ their system, so Daubenton insisted on the 
I study of each animal as an individual whole. 
