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OWEN’S POSITION IN 
hand, if any one utterly ignorant of osteology, 
but endowed with the artistic sense of form, were 
set before a bird skeleton and a mammalian 
skeleton, he would at once see that the two were 
similar and yet different. Very likely he would be 
unable to give clear expression to his just sense 
of the differences and resemblances ; perhaps he 
would make great mistakes in detail if he tried. 
Nevertheless, he would be able to draw from 
memory a couple of sketches, in which all the 
salient points of likeness and unlikeness would be 
reproduced with sufficient accuracy. The mere 
osteologist, however accurately he might put the 
resemblances and differences into words, if he 
lacked the artistic visualising faculty, might be 
hopelessly incompetent to perform any such feat ; 
lost in details, it might not even occur to him that 
it was possible ; or, still more probably, the habit 
of looking for differences might impair the per- 
ception of resemblances. 
Under these circumstances, the artist might be 
led to higher and broader views, and thus be more 
useful to the progress of science than the osteo- 
logical expert. Not that the former attains the 
higher truth by a different method ; for the way of 
reaching truth is one and indivisible. Whether he 
knows it or not, the artist has made a generalisa- 
tion from two sets of facts, which is perfectly 
scientific in form ; and, trustworthy, so far as it 
rests upon the direct perception of similarities and 
