THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 331 
give the general reader an outline sketch of the scope 
and the course of modern biological science ; of the 
condition of its several great divisions when Sir 
R. Owen commenced his career sixty-four years 
ago ; of the influence of his work upon the extra- 
ordinarily rapid advance of biology in the course 
of that time ; and it may be well that, arrived at 
the end of my task, I recall my allusion, at the 
outset, to the special difficulties in the way of the 
satisfactory performance of it. 
It does not appear to me that anything need be 
said here about the many scientific controversies 
in which Owen was engaged. I should be of this 
opinion if I had not been concerned in any of them ; 
for I do not see what good is to result from the 
revival of the memory of such conflicts. And 
whether I am right or wrong in this opinion, 
I am well assured that, if anything is to be said 
upon this topic, I am not the proper person to 
say it. 
But notwithstanding my determination to 
ignore controversies, and a strong desire to 
appreciate rather than to criticise, I am sensible 
that the discussion of the ‘ Archetype ’ and ot 
‘ Parthenogenesis ’ not merely allows the wide 
differences of opinion, which unhappily obtained 
between Sir R. Owen and myself, to appear, but 
occupies an amount of space which may be 
thought excessive, in relation to that filled by my 
endeavour to do justice to the great and solid 
