n track of human relative anatomy, it can only be in
truthful and well-planned illustration. Under this view alone may the
anatomist plead an excuse for reiterating a theme which the beautiful
works of Cowper, Haller, Hunter, Scarpa, Soemmering, and others, have
dealt out so respectably. Except the human anatomist turns now to what
he terms the practical ends of his study, and marshals his little
knowledge to bear upon those ends, one may proclaim anthropotomy to have
worn itself out. Dissection can do no more, except to repeat
Cruveilhier. And that which Cruveilhier has done for human anatomy,
Muller has completed for the physiological interpretation of human
anatomy; Burdach has philosophised, and Magendie has experimented to the
full upon this theme, so far as it would permit. All have pushed the
subject to its furthest limits, in one aspect of view. The narrow circle
is footworn. All the needful facts are long since gathered, sown, and
known. We have been seekers after those facts from the days of
Aristotle. Are we to put off the day of attempting interpretation for
three thousand years more, to allow the human physiologist time to slice
the brain into more delicate atoms than he has done hitherto, in order
to coin more names, and swell the dictionary? No! The work must now be
retrospective, if we would render true knowledge progressive. It is not
a list of new and disjointed facts that Science at present thirsts for;
but she is impressed with the conviction that her wants can alone be
supplied by the creation of a new and truthful theory,--a generalization
which the facts already known are sufficient to supply, if they were
well ordered according to their natural relationship and mutual
dependence. "Le temps viendra peut-etre," says Fontenelle, "que l'on
joindra en un corps regulier ces membres epars; et, s'ils sont tels
qu'on le souhaite, ils s'assembleront en quelque sorte d'eux-memes.
Plusieurs verites separees, des qu'elles sont en assez grand nombre,
offrent si vivement a l'esprit leurs rapports et leur mutuelle
dependance, qu'il semble qu'apres les avoir detachees par une espece de
violence les unes des autres, elles cherchent naturellement a se
reunir."--(Preface sur l'utilite des Sciences, &c.)

The comparison of facts already known must henceforward be the scalpel
which we are to take in hand. We must return by the same road on which
we set out, and reexamine the things and phenomena which, as novices, we