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OWEN’S POSITION IN 
the earliest rudiments of the spinal column, and 
the manner in which it becomes segmented, are 
alike throughout. 
On the other hand, a favourite speculation of 
the philosophical anatomists, that the lower jaw 
is formed by the coalescence of a pair of limbs, 
for which comparative anatomy seemed to offer 
some support ; and Geoffroy’s tempting sugges- 
tion that the opercular bones of fishes answer to 
the ear-bones of mammals, were at once negatived 
by the study of the development of the parts. 
Again, the hypothesis that the skull consists of 
modified vertebrse, advocated by Goethe and 
Oken, and the subject of many elaborate works, 
was so little reconcilable with the mode of its de- 
velopment that, as early as 1842, Vogt threw well- 
founded doubts upon it. ‘ All efforts to interpret 
the skull in this way,’ said he, ‘are vain.’ 
The preceding sketch of the history of ana- 
tomical science, though drawn only in broad out- 
line, may suffice to indicate the courses which 
naturally suggested themselves to anyone taking 
up the subject in the beginning of the fourth 
decade of the present century. 
There was the brilliant example of Cuvier in 
the ‘ Anatomie Comparee,’ the ‘ Memoires surles 
Mollusques,’ and the ‘ Ossemens Fossiles,’ for any 
one disposed to devote himself to the increase of 
the capital stock of knowledge by museum work, or 
