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OWEN’S POSITION IN 
in later years. In 1849, the first of the long 
series of memoirs on British fossil reptiles ap- 
peared , in 1863, the description of the famous 
reptilian bird Archeeopteryx. 
It is a splendid record; enough, and more 
than enough, to justify the high place in the 
scientific world which Owen so long occupied. 
If I mistake not, the historian of comparative 
anatomy and of palaeontology will always assign to 
Owen a place next to, and hardly lower than that 
of Cuvier, who was practically the creator of those 
sciences in their modern shape ; and whose works 
must always remain models of excellence in their 
kind. It was not uncommon to hear our country- 
man called ‘ the British Cuvier,’ and so far, in my 
judgment, the collocation was justified, high as 
the praise it implies. 
But when we consider Owen’s contributions to 
philosophical anatomy,’ I think the epithet ceases 
to be appropriate. For there can be no question 
that he was deeply influenced by, and inclined 
towards, those speculations of Oken and Geoffroy 
St. Hilaire, of which Cuvier was the declared 
antagonist and often the bitter critic. 
That Owen was strongly attracted by the 
Naturphilosophie of Germany is evidenced, not 
merely by his attitude towards the problems 
of philosophical anatomy, but by his article on 
Oken in the ‘ Encyclopaedia Britannica ; ’ and by 
