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² Cited in Desmond, A., Archetypes and Ancestors: Palaeontology in Victorian London, 1850–1875, London, 1982, p. 60.Google Scholar

³ Published in Rev. Owen, R., The Life of Richard Owen, 2 vols, London, 1894, Vol. 1, pp. 249–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The location of the original letter is unknown.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 309–311. Desmond has identified Owen's correspondent as Chapman, , op. cit. (2), pp. 29, 210 (note 27).Google Scholar

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⁸ Ibid. Ruse seems not to have known of Brooke's reassessment at the time of writing. See Note 9.

⁹ Brooke, J.H., ‘Richard Owen, William Whewell and the Vestiges’, British Journal for the History of Science, (1977), 10, pp. 132–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹³ Ibid., p. 285.

¹⁴ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 29–37, p. 33.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid. See also Richards, E., ‘The German Romantic Concept of Embryonic Repetition and its Role in Evolutionary Theory in England up to 1859’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of New South Wales, 1976, pp. 313–315.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Desmond, A., ‘Richard Owen's reaction to transmutation in the 1830's’, British Journal for the History of Science, (1985), 18, pp. 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2)Google Scholar; Young, R.M., ‘The historiographic and ideological contexts of the nineteenth century debate on man's place in nature’, in: Teich, M. and Young, R.M., eds, Changing Perspectives in the History of Science, London, 1973, pp. 344–438Google Scholar; Shapin, S., ‘History of science and its sociological reconstructions’, History of Science, (1982), 20, pp. 157–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Brooke, J.H., 1977, op.cit. (9), p. 135.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Rev. Owen, R., op. cit. (3), p. 252.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Brooke, J.H., 1977, op. cit. (9), p. 137.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid., p. 134.

²¹ Ospovat, D., 1976, op. cit. (7); 1981, op. cit. (12), pp. 129–135.Google Scholar For Huxley's opinion of Owen's embryology, see Notes 191 and 192.

²² Chambers, R., Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 10th edn., London, 1853, p. vi.Google Scholar

²³ The terminology and the distinctions drawn are indebted to Russell, E.S.'s classic analysis, Form and Function: A Contribution to the Study of Animal Morphology, London, 1916, reprinted, 1972.Google Scholar See also Richards, , 1976, op. cit. (15)Google Scholar; and Gould, S.J., Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1977.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ospovat, D., 1976, op. cit. (7)Google Scholar; Richards, , op. cit. (15), Chapter 5.Google Scholar

²⁵ Chambers, R., Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 1st edn., 1844, reprinted, N.Y., 1969, pp. 199–213Google Scholar; Ruse, , 1979, op. cit. (7), pp. 102–104.Google Scholar Chambers drew on three major sources for the embryological information in the first edition of Vestiges, two of which he acknowledged. They were: the work of the transcendentalist Fletcher, John (Rudiments of Physiology, Edinburgh, 1837)Google Scholar; a popular treatise on physiology by Perceval Barton Lord who seems to have been influenced by transcendental ideas while at Edinburgh (Popular Physiology, London, 1834)Google Scholar; and the third and unacknowledged source was William Carpenter's Physiology of 1841, see Note 29. Both Fletcher and Lord propounded the law of parallelism, while Carpenter adopted von Baer's law.

²⁶ Sedgwick devoted twelve pages to his review of Vestiges to just such a selective critique of its embryology, Edinburgh Review, 1845, LXXXIII, pp. 1–85.Google Scholar Note that Sedgwick obtained his embryological information from the Cambridge professor of anatomy, William Clark, not from Owen (see text). Other early reviews which made much of the embryological confusion of Vestiges included those in Blackwood's Magazine (1845, LVII, pp. 448–460)Google Scholar, Westminster Review (1845, XLIV, pp. 152–203)Google Scholar, British Quarterly Review, (1845, I, pp. 490–513)Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that Carpenter wrote a very sympathetic review of Vestiges which did not dwell upon its embryological inadequacies [British and Foreign Medical Review, (1845), XIX, pp. 155–181].Google Scholar

²⁷ von Baer, K.E., Uber die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere: Beobachtung und Reflexion, Konigsberg, 1828, p. 225.Google Scholar For von Baer's explanation of his table, see pp. 229–230.

²⁸ Barry, M., ‘Further observations on the unity of structure in the animal kingdom, and on congenital abnormalities, including ‘hermaphrodites;’ with some remarks on embryology, as facilitating animal nomenclature, classification, and the study of comparative anatomy’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, (1836–1837), XXII, pp. 345–364.Google Scholar See also Barry's previous paper, ‘On the unity of structure in the animal kingdom’, ibid., (1836–1837), XXII, pp. 116–141.

²⁹ Carpenter, W.B., Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, 2nd edn., London, 1841, pp. 196–197.Google Scholar

³⁰ This is also the opinion of Ospovat, [1976, op. cit. (7), p. 13]Google Scholar; Ruse, [1979, op. cit. (7), p. 103]Google Scholar; and Gould, [1977, op. cit. (23), p. 103].Google Scholar

³¹ Vestiges, 1844, op. cit. (25), p. 212.Google Scholar The prior endorsement of parallelism occurs on pp. 199–203.

³² Gould, , 1977, op. cit. (23), pp. 109–112.Google Scholar

³³ Vestiges, 1844, op. cit. (25), p. 213.Google Scholar

³⁴ Chambers argued by reference to Babbage's calculating machine, that the law that like produces like is subordinate to a higher law which on occasion permits the production of a higher form of life, ibid., p. 210. Thus new species are formed by law in accordance with a Divine plan, ibid., pp. 230–233. At the same time, as he insisted on a parallel between geological and biological uniformitarianism, he also admitted the direct action of the environment on the reproductive system (p. 229). This latter was Geoffrey's thesis, to which Owen was opposed (see Notes 77 and 78). However, in discussing the Vestiges thesis, Owen focused on the idea of a pre-ordained higher generative law (see Notes 61, 62, 69). In later editions of Vestiges, Chambers adopted the more Lamarckian explanation of an ‘inherent impulse’ to advance, although this was, of course, still Divinely induced. For a discussion of Chambers' changing evolutionary ideas and their relation to the romantic conception of nature and, in particular, the ideas of Geoffroy, see Hooykaas, R., ‘The parallel between the history of the earth and the history of the animal world’, Archives Intern. Hist. Sci. (1957), 10, pp. 3–18Google Scholar; Hodge, , 1972, op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

³⁵ Geoffroy's major evolutionary writings are contained in two memoirs: ‘Mémoire où l'on se propose de rechercher dan quels rapports de structure organique et de parenté sont entre eux les animaux des âges historiques, et vivant actuellement, et les espèces antédiluviennes et perdues’, Mém. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. (1828), XVII, pp. 209–229Google Scholar; ‘Le degré d'influence du monde ambiant pour modifier les formes animales; question intéressant l'origine des espèces téléosauriennes et successivement celle des animaux de l'époque actuelle’, Mém. Acad. Sc. (1833), XII, pp. 63–92.Google Scholar See also Russell, , op. cit. (23), Chapter 5Google Scholar; Canguilhem, G. et al. , ‘Du développment à l'évolution au XIXe siecle’, Thalès (1960), pp. 3–63Google Scholar; Gould, , op. cit. (23), pp. 49–52.Google Scholar

³⁶ Vestiges, 1844, op. cit. (25), p. 219.Google Scholar It was this aspect of Chambers' mechanism from which Owen dissented, see Notes 68, 125. See text for Owen's conception of ‘transmutation’, and the basis of his anti-transmutationism.

³⁷ See Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

³⁸ For instance, the table on pp. 226–227, Vestiges, op. cit. (25).

³⁹ Vestiges, 10th edn., 1853, pp. cit. (22), Preface and pp. 147–162Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7), p. 13, fn, 35Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), p. 216.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Chambers, R., Explanations, 2nd edn., London, 1846, pp. 103–109.Google Scholar Richard Yeo has documented how Chambers was able to exploit a similar controversial situation with respect to the nebular hypothesis in dealing with his critics: Yeo, R., ‘Science and intellectual authority in mid-nineteenth-century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’, Victorian Studies, (1984), 28, pp. 5–31, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Owen, R., Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, London, 1843, p. 24.Google Scholar Owen states only that Barry provided him with some notes for his Lectures, but he was clearly familiar with Barry's 1836/37 papers (see Note 28) and these were the obvious source of Owen's embryological references in his Hunterian Lectures of 1837 when he first began advocating the embryological law of divergence in opposition to the transmutationism of Grant and Geoffroy (see Note 79). See also Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7), pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), pp. 130–132Google Scholar; Desmond, A., 1985, op. cit. (16), pp. 25–50, pp. 46–49.Google Scholar Owen's relationship with Barry warrants closer investigation in view of their embryological and morphological affinity, and Barry's failure to protest Owen's apparent appropriation of his work (see below). They corresponded frequently and Barry regarded Owen as his mentor, dedicating his final work to him [British Museum (Natural History), hereafter referred to as BM(NH), Owen Correspondence, vol. 2, ff. 253–309; vol. 9, f. 214]. It was Owen who confirmed Barry's observation of the presence of spermatozoa ‘on, and apparently in, the fallopian ovum of a rabbit’ in 1842 (Royal College of Surgeons, Stone Watson Papers, Mss and Autographs).

⁴² BM(NH), Owen Correspondence, vol. 6, ff. 333–338.Google Scholar Carpenter's earliest letter to Owen on this problem of priority is dated 20 August 1851. Although Carpenter put up a good fight, Owen wore him down over the following years, until in a final exasperated retort, dated 11 February 1854, Carpenter conceded defeat: ‘You will see that I have differentiated the principle which is properly yours from that which I thought to be mine, having been in the habit of stating it in Lectures for the last 12 or 14 years, and not being aware that it had been enunciated by anyone else. But I do not intend to make any claim to it whatever … In fact, I do not intend to make any claims to originality, being quite satisfied that my labours are doing good, and caring little about anything else.’ See also Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 92–93Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

⁴³ [Owen, R.], ‘Lyell—on life and its successive development’, Quarterly Review, (1851), 89, pp. 412–451, p. 430, fn.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Milne-Edwards, H., ‘Considérations sur quelques principes relatifs à la classification naturelle des animaux’, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, (1844), 1 (3), pp. 65–99.Google Scholar For a discussion of Milne-Edwards' views on development and their relation to those of von Baer and Owen, see Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7), pp. 10–12Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), pp. 117–140.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Owen, R., ‘Considérations sur le plan organique et le mode de développement des animaux’, Annales des Science Naturelles, (1844), 2 (3), pp. 162–168.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 162, fn.

⁴⁷ Owen, R., ‘Proofs of Reviews, 1847–1882,’ BM(NH), OC, vol. 39Google Scholar. There are two relevant proofs in this collection, one dated ‘Quarterly Review’ 1851, and the other ‘Review of Archetype’ in “Quarterly” for 1852?’; Both have been extensively revised and amended in Owen's own hand, and much-pruned versions were published as ‘Professor Owen—progress of comparative anatomy’, Quarterly Review, (1851–1852), 90, pp. 363–413Google Scholar; and ‘Generalizations of comparative anatomy’, ibid. (1853), 93, pp. 46–83. Their production was a collaborative process between Owen and William Broderip, naturalist and jurist, extending over almost 4 years, and documented in Broderip's correspondence with Owen. Lockhart, the editor of the conservative Quarterly, first approached Broderip in August 1849, requesting an article on Owen [BM(NH), OC, vol. 5, f. 176, Broderip to Owen], and the final revised proof of the second article was not received until May, 1853 (ibid., ff. 236–237). Close study of the various proofs and their final published versions reveals a lengthy process of arbitration between Owen and Lockhart (who argued that Owen did not require ‘minute vindication’ of his priority claims, Broderip to Owen, 23 May, 1852, ibid., ff. 213–214), with Broderip acting as go-between. Rupke has discussed the contents of the final published versions of these papers in some detail, but attributes their production entirely to Broderip and overlooks Owen's guiding hand: Rupke, N., ‘Richard Owen's Hunterian lectures on comparative anatomy and physiology, 1837–1855’, Medical History, (1985), 29, pp. 237–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁸ [Owen, R. and Broderip, W.], ‘Review of Archetype’, proof, op. cit. (47), p. 11, pp. 7–12.Google Scholar This statement was edited out by Lockhart in the published version, and the whole section on Owen's embryological researches was ‘pruned’ on Lockhart's insistence: ‘Generalizations of comparative anatomy’, op. cit. (47), pp. 59–65; Broderip, to Owen, , 26 05 1853, BM(NH), OC, vol. 5, ff. 236–237.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ ‘Review of Archetype’, op. cit. (47), p. 9.Google Scholar See also ‘Generalizations of comparative anatomy’, op. cit. (47), pp. 62–63Google Scholar; ‘Lyell on life and its successive development’, op. cit. (43), p. 430Google Scholar, fn., where Owen gave the same references.

⁵⁰ Owen, R., Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, op. cit. (41), p. 368.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 369–370.

⁵² This interpretation is consistent with that of Ospovat, Note 44.

⁵³ This seems to be the basis of his claim for precedence over von Baer [‘Lyell—on life…’, op. cit. (43)] and Barry, [‘Generalizations of comparative anatomy’, op. cit. (47), pp. 61–62]Google Scholar. Both claims, however, are specious. It is significant that Owen refers to neither von Baer's 1828 publication (which contains the relevant 5th Scholion, Note 27) nor to Barry's second paper of 1837 (which contains Barry's diagram of divergent development, Note 28) in this connection. Nor did he ever cite Carpenter's 1841 publication throughout his dispute with Carpenter. The only conclusions possible are either that Owen was guilty of duplicity and deliberately suppressed the relevant publications, or, that he was not aware of their existence (which seems most unlikely in the case of Barry and Carpenter). With respect to von Baer, I have formed the opinion that Owen's claim to precedence was based on the simple fact that he did not read the relevant Scholion until its translation into English by Huxley in 1853 (see Note 54). Owen's German was not as good as he liked to make out, and he often required assistance with the translation of his German correspondence.

⁵⁴ The second edition of Owen's Lectures on Invertebrates of 1855, reproduced substantially the same summary on development as that of 1843, but Owen conceded in a footnote that his propositions were ‘well supported and illustrated by von Baer’, and cited von Baer's Entwickelungsgeschichte of 1828 in this and other notes appended to this edition: Owen, R., Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn., London, 1855, p. 645, fn.Google Scholar However, on the basis of the similarity between Owen's quotations from von Baer and Huxley's translation, his source was most likely the latter: ‘Fragments relating to philosophical zoology, selected from the works of K.E. von Baer’, (tr. Huxley, T.H.), in Henfrey, A. and Huxley, T.H. (eds), Scientific Memoirs, London, 1853, pp. 176–238.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9) p. 137.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Op. cit. (3), p. 251. Brooke concedes that this sentence ‘sticks in the gullet’, op. cit. (9), p. 138.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ In his Explanations, in rebutting the embryological criticisms of Vestiges, Chambers did refer to Owen's Lectures on Invertebrates, but not to the summary: Explanations, 1845, op. cit. (41), pp. 106–107.Google Scholar The passage cited by Chambers is the second reference discussed in Note 58—and indicates that Chambers did follow up Owen's references. Significantly, Chambers interpreted Owen's reference to the early ‘vermiform’ stage of the human embryo as meaning that the human embryo at this stage was comparable to an invertebrate, and cited this passage in opposition to Sedgwick's criticism (see Note 26). Nevertheless, although he misconstrued Owen's embryology, he evidently did not construe Owen's reference to ‘the idea and diagram’ of Vestiges as criticism.

⁵⁸ Owen, , Lectures on Invertebrates 1843, op. cit. (41), p. 147.Google Scholar Owen's second reference to the conclusion of the lecture ‘On the Metamorphosis of Insects’ (see text) is the same as the first reference cited in the 1851 account of his priority dispute with Milne-Edwards (see text). It is to the effect that the human embryo passes through the earlier forms of the vertebrates, and although it is superficially similar to an articulate in its very early stages, it does not actually represent one (ibid., p. 249). This is compatible with the Vestiges diagram, but hardly warrants the description of Owen's ‘true law’.

⁵⁹ Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9), p. 137.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Other interpretations are, of course, possible. Owen may merely have been careless, or the letter may have been mistranscribed for publication.

⁶¹ [Owen, R.], ‘Darwin on the origin of species’, Edinburgh Review, (1860), 111, pp. 487–532, 504–505.Google Scholar See also pp. 497, 503, 508.

⁶² Ibid., p. 508. Note Owen's discussion of the distinctions and similarities between his conception of the forces controlling the ‘development of organized beings’ and those of the Vestiges author, and his related reference to his ‘true law’ of embryological development of 1843 (pp. 506–507). As Owen explained it, the ideological principle (‘the specific organizing principle’ which shapes the living thing to its functions) is opposed by a ‘general polarizing force’ which brings about repetition of parts (Owen's ‘irrelative repetition’) and similarity of forms–all the signs of unity of organization and of the archetype. The extent to which the teleological principle overcomes the general polarizing force is an index of the grade of the species. These antagonistic forces not only control individual development, but the development of life on earth. Owen first enunciated his conception of the principles of polarity in development in his major theoretical work On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, London, 1848, pp. 171–172.Google Scholar See also Russell, , op. cit. (23), pp. 111–112.Google Scholar

⁶³ Owen, R., On the Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. 3, London, 1868, pp. 807–808.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ [Owen, R.], ‘Lyell–on life and its successive development’, op. cit. (43), pp. 448–450.Google Scholar See Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), pp. 136–140.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Owen, , 1868, op. cit., pp. 794–795.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 797. In Owen's own words, the series evidences ‘(preordained) departures from parental type, probably sudden and seemingly monstrous, but adapting the progeny inheriting such modifications to higher purposes’.

⁶⁷ Ibid., p. 795.

⁶⁸ This would conform with Owen's conception of the antagonistic forces controlling development. The production of a new species is dependent upon the agency of the teleological principle, the ‘specific organizing force’, which ‘subdues and moulds’ the ‘general polarizing force’ in ‘subserviency to the exigencies of the resulting specific form’. See Note 62. The three toes of the Palaeotherium are the signs of irrelative repetition and are due to the action of the general polarizing force. The development of the extra toes is suppressed or arrested through the agency of the teleological principle which thus brings about the birth of the Hipparion, and ultimately, through further arrest of development, the single-toed modern horse.

⁶⁹ Owen, , 1860, op. cit. (61), pp. 502–503.Google Scholar See also Owen, R., On Parthenogenesis, or the Successive Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum, London, 1949, p. 3Google Scholar; Owen, R., ‘Presidential Address’, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, (1858) Leeds, pp. xlix–cx, p. lxxv. See also Note 15.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Owen, , 1868, op. cit. (63), p. 807.Google Scholar In all his writings on the topic, Owen seems, in the light of hindsight, to have been fumbling towards some conception of paedomorphosis: (literally, ‘shaped like a child’), the retention of youthful ancestral characters in later ontogenetic stages of descendants. See Gould, , op. cit. (23), pp. 221–228.Google Scholar Owen's 1849 Hunterian Lectures on Generation [BM(NH), OC, vol. 38], warrant further study.

⁷¹ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 78.Google Scholar

⁷² De Beer, G. (ed.), ‘Darwin's notebooks on transmutation of species, Part 1. First notebook’, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, (1960), 2, p. 61.Google Scholar Note also Darwin's reference to Owen's contemporaneous criticism of the Meckel-Serres law (p. 62). Darwin also had recently been reading some of Geoffroy's work (pp. 53–55).

⁷³ Hunter, J., Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy, with notes by Owen, Richard, London, 1837.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Ibid., pp. xxiv–xxvii; pp. 44–45.

⁷⁵ Ibid., p. xxvi.

⁷⁶ There are many instances of such ‘double monsters’ in the extant Hunterian Collection. See also ‘Ms. Catalogue of Physiological Series of Hunterian Museum’, original fascicules partly in John Hunter's hand corrected by William Clift, 1816, Royal College of Surgeons, 49.d.5.

⁷⁷ Geoffrey St Hilaire, 1828 and 1833, op. cit. (35). In his 1833 Memoir, Geoffrey referred to monstrosities as ‘êtres ébauchés’—preparatory or precursory beings, ibid., p. 85. Geoffrey also expressed organic change as the resolution of polar conflict. He distinguished between two conflicting influences on the developing organism: a conservative factor inherent in the germ which tends to produce an offspring exactly like the parent; and a factor for change—the external influence of the environment. Any alteration in the environment resolves the conflict in favour of change, ibid., p. 69; 1828, op. cit., pp. 214–216.

⁷⁸ Owen, , 1868, op. cit. (63), p. 795.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ R. Owen, Hunterian Lectures 3 and 4,6 and 9 May, Royal College of Surgeons, MS 42.d.4, ff. 95–98; Desmond, , 1985, op. cit. (16), p. 48. See Note 41.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ To wit: ‘If the progressive development of animal organization ever extended beyond the acquisition of the mature characters of the individual, so as to abrogate fixity of species by a transmutation of a lower into a higher organization, some evidence of it ought surely to be obtained …’, Owen, R., ‘Report on British fossil reptiles’, Part II, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, (1841) pp. 60–204, p. 197.Google Scholar Note the similarity between Owen's speculations ‘with all due diffidence’ on the relationship between the changing oxygen content of the atmosphere and the succession of the vertebrate classes in time (pp. 202–204), and Geoffrey's idea that as the respiratory medium changes it brings about a corresponding change in the species (see Note 77).

⁸¹ See Note 11.

⁸² [Owen, ], 1860, op. cit. (61), p. 500.Google Scholar

⁸³ MacLeod, , 1965, op. cit. (7), pp. 264–270Google Scholar; Ruse, , 1979, op. cit. (7), pp. 116–125.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Russell, , op. cit. (23), pp. 312, 214.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ On the Nature of Limbs, 1849, op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7), p. 36.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Morphology is not the science of fixed form or Gestalt, but of the formation and transformation of organic forms or Bildung. For a discussion of the historic process implicit in romantic morphology see Gode-von Aesch, A., Natural Science in German Romanticism, NY, 1966Google Scholar; Temkin, O., ‘German concepts of ontogeny and history around 1800’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, (1950), 24, pp. 227–246.Google ScholarPubMed

⁸⁸ See Notes 62, 68 and 77.

⁸⁹ Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), p. 133Google Scholar; Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 42–48, 50, 65–72.Google Scholar See also Note 42.

⁹⁰ Owen, , On the Nature of Limbs, op. cit. (5), pp. 85–86Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

⁹¹ See Note 4.

⁹² Op. cit. (69); Note 15.

⁹³ Sedgwick to Owen [early 1850], BM(NH), Owen Correspondence, vol. 23, ff. 283–284. This letter is undated, but 1 have assigned a date of early 1850 to it on the basis of Sedgwick's references to his forthcoming book (see Note 163), and to his previous letter of Feb., 1850, ibid., ff. 249–250. See also ff. 306–307.

⁹⁴ Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7), p. 46.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Brooke, , 1979, op. cit. (10), p. 47.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 29–48, 62–64Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

⁹⁷ See text, Part 2.

⁹⁸ Darwin, C., The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, London, 1859, pp. 488–490Google Scholar; Gruber, H.E., Darwin on Man, London, 1974, Ch. 2 and p. 209.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ [Owen, R.], ‘Darwin on the origin of species’, op. cit. (61), p. 514.Google Scholar See also Owen, R., ‘On the Aye-Aye’, Transactions of the Zoological Society, (1866), 5, pp. 3–101, p. 92Google Scholar; Owen, , 1868, op. cit. (63), pp. 809, 814–825.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ By this stage, Owen seems to have been, like Chambers in 1844, advocating a form of continuous parallel evolution; see Hodge, , 1972, op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

¹⁰² Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2)Google Scholar; Desmond, , 1985, op. cit. (16)Google Scholar. See also Desmond, A., ‘Robert E. Grant: the social predicament of a pre-Darwinian transmutationist’, Journal of the History of Biology, (1984), 17, pp. 189–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Desmond, A., ‘The making of institutional zoology in London 1822–1836: Parts 1 and 2’, History of Science, (1985), 23, pp. 153–185; 223–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Desmond offers by far the most perceptive and detailed contextual reconstruction of Owen's early intellectual and institutional milieu. But see also Rupke, , op. cit. (47).Google Scholar

¹⁰³ See Note 3.

¹⁰⁴ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit, (2), pp. 115–121Google Scholar; Desmond, , 1985, op. cit. (16).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Desmond, , 1985Google Scholar, ibid., pp. 41–43. Note Gould's remarks on Geoffrey's relation of the young ape to man, with its implication of a paedomorphic theory of human origins: Gould, , op. cit. (23), pp. 353–355Google Scholar, and refer to Note 70.

¹⁰⁶ Desmond, , 1985, op. cit. (16), pp. 43–45, 49–50.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., pp. 47–49. See Notes 41 and 79.

¹⁰⁸ See Note 102. Desmond stresses these aspects of Owen's anti-transmutationism over and over in his writings. This is also the thrust of Ospovat's criticism of Brooke's interpretation of Owen's Vestiges letter (see Note 13). Owen himself drew these distinctions between his own position and that of the ‘transmutationists’ in his 1860 review of The Origin [Owen, , 1860, op. cit. (61), pp. 500–506].Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ ‘Naturalistic’ in the sense that Owen subscribed to the belief that natural laws were the basis of Omnipotent design and that all causes were hence ‘secondary’. See text, Part 1.

¹¹⁰ See also Ospovat, , 1978, op. cit. (7), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 37Google Scholar; Farley, J. and Geison, G.L., ‘Science, politics and spontaneous generation in nineteenth-century France: the Pasteur-Pouchet Debate’, in Darwin to Einstein: Historical Studies on Science and Belief, Chant, C. and Fauvel, J. (eds.), Harlow and N.Y., 1980, pp. 107–133.Google Scholar

¹¹² Owen, R., ‘Manuscripts, notes and synopses of lectures, 1828–1841’, Hunterian Lectures, 1840Google Scholar, Lecture 2, BM(NH), OC, vol. 38, ff. 28, 23.

¹¹³ Millhauser, M.Just before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges, Connecticut, 1959, pp. 93, 94, 99Google Scholar; Gillispie, C.C., Genesis and Geology, N.Y., 1959, p. 104.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Lenoir, T., The Strategy of Life: Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth Century German Biology, Dordrecht, 1982.Google Scholar As late as 1876, von Baer was still arguing for the spontaneous generation of complex organisms in opposition to natural selection (ibid., p. 263). Owen discussed (and rejected) such speculations within the context of German physiology in his 1840 lectures [op. cit. (112), ff. 27–29. Note Owen's references to Oken]. This was almost certainly one of the six possible ‘secondary causes’ of the production of new species Owen claimed to know in his 1848 letter to Chapman (see Note 4). Note also William Carpenter's review of Vestiges where he stated his own preference for such an explanation and defended the experiments of Crosse, and Weekes, [op. cit. (26), pp. 169–181].Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9), pp. 135–136.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Owen, , 1860, op. cit. (61), p. 514.Google Scholar See also Note 99. See Farley and Geison for a discussion of the political dimensions of the Pasteur-Pochet Debate, op. cit. (111).

¹¹⁷ Owen, , 1868, op. cit. (63), p. 814.Google Scholar Owen's expression ‘party of order’ is interesting. The ‘party of order’ was the name the French gave to the union of conservative and formerly moderate forces with the old regimes against the revolutionary forces of 1848. See Hobsbawm, E.J., The Age of Capital, 1848–1875, London, 1975, p. 17Google Scholar; Farley, and Geison, , op. cit. (111).Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Brooke, , 1979, op. cit. (10), p. 53.Google Scholar See also Young, R.M. ‘Natural Theology, Victorian Periodicals and the Fragmentation of a Common Context’Google Scholar, in Chant, and Fauvel, , op. cit. (111), pp. 69–107.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Cf. MacLeod, , op. cit. (7).Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Desmond, , 1985, op. cit. (16), p. 50Google Scholar; Ruse, , op. cit. (7), Ch. 5.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Herbert, S., ‘The place of man in the development of Darwin's theory of transmutation’, Part 2, Journal of the History of Biology, (1977), 10, pp. 155–227, pp. 156–157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

¹²² See Hodge, , 1972, op. cit. (7), p. 134.Google Scholar

¹²³ Rev. Owen, R., 1894, op. cit. (3), vol. 1, pp. 252–256.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ Reprinted in Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9), p. 141.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Ibid., p. 138.

¹²⁶ Ibid., p. 142.

¹²⁷ See Note 8.

¹²⁸ Murchison, to Owen, , 2 04 1845Google Scholar, in Rev. Owen, R., op. cit. (3), p. 254.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9), p. 142.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Owen, to Whewell, , 22 02 1845Google Scholar, quoted in Brooke, ibid., p. 140.

¹³¹ Owen, to Whewell, , 14 02 [1845]Google Scholar, ibid., p. 142.

¹³² Ibid., p. 134.

¹³³ Rev. Owen, R., op. cit. (3).Google Scholar

¹³⁴ Ibid., pp. 309–310. See also Owen's second letter to Chapman, , pp. 310–311. See Note 4.Google Scholar

¹³⁵ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 35.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Owen, , On Parthenogenesis, op. cit. (69).Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 210–211.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ Whewell, , Indications of the Creator, London, 1846, Preface, p. 21.Google Scholar Quoted in Brooke, , 1977, op. cit. (9), p. 139.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ Ruse, , op. cit. (7), p. 127.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 270.

¹⁴¹ Owen's expression, Owen, to Powell, , 26 01 1850Google Scholar, cited in Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 46Google Scholar; cf. Brooke's commentary on this letter, 1979, op. cit. (10), pp. 40–41. The ‘Puseyites’ were the Anglo-Catholic followers of E.B. Pusey who denounced science for its incompatability with revealed religion. Although Owen associated his critic with the Puseyites, the doctrinal affiliations of the author of the articles are not so clear cut. He seems, if anything, to have been an admirer of Francis W. Newman, and, when challenged by Owen, claimed that it was not the policy of the Spectator to ‘set a mere theologic dogma in opposition to an established scientific fact’. ‘Christianity and Civilization’, The Manchester Spectator, 1849: 24 November, p. 4Google Scholar; 1 December, p. 4; 8 December, pp. 4–5; 22 December, p. 4.

¹⁴² Ruse, , op. cit. (7), p. 129Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, E.J., Industry and Empire, Harmondsworth, 1979, p. 77Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, , 1975, op. cit. (117), Ch. 1.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Brooke, , 1979, op. cit. (10), p. 47.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ Owen, , 1868, op. cit. (63), p. 796Google Scholar, fn. See also Owen, , 1860, op. cit. (61), p. 511Google Scholar; 1866, op. cit. (99), p. 90.

¹⁴⁵ Owen, R., On the Nature of Limbs, 1849Google Scholar; Owen's own interleaved copy with his autograph notes and memoranda, BM(NH), OC, 18, pp. 85–92.

¹⁴⁶ The Manchester Spectator was founded in 1849 and ceased publication in 1851. Judging by its leaders, it was competing for the same middle-class provincial readers as its more successful rivals, the Manchester Guardian and the Manchester Examiner and Times. See Read, D., Press and People, 1790–1850, London, 1961Google Scholar; Koss, S., The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, vol. 1, ‘The Nineteenth Century’, London, 1981, pp. 60–62.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ See Note 141.

¹⁴⁸ ‘Christianity and Civilization’, Manchester Spectator, 3rd article, 8 12, 1849, p. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ Ibid., 1st article, 24 November, 1849, p. 4.

¹⁵⁰ Ibid., 3rd article, 8 December.

¹⁵¹ Ibid.

¹⁵² See, for instance, Owen, , 1848, op. cit. (62), pp. 8, 73–75.Google Scholar Owen later wrote a laudatory Brittanica article on Oken, 8th edn., 1858–1859. See Rupke, , op. cit. (47), pp. 249, 252.Google Scholar

¹⁵³ English translation of 3rd German edn., Zurich, 1843, by Tulk, A. for the Ray Society, as Elements of Physiophilosophy, London, 1847.Google Scholar See Oken, to Owen, , 12 01 1847Google Scholar, BM(NH), OC, vol. 20, ff. 362–363.

¹⁵⁴ See Note 53.

¹⁵⁵ The Zoologist, (1847), 5, Preface, pp. v–x.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ ‘Minutes of the Ray Society, from its commencement in 1844 to 31 December, 1847’, October 16 and November 5, 1847, Ray Society Archives, BM(NH).

¹⁵⁷ Ibid., 5 November 1847.

¹⁵⁸ Ibid., 19 November and 17 December 1847. See also copy of letter of 20 December from Thomas Bell to William [Thompson].

¹⁵⁹ See Huxley, T.H., ‘Owen's position in the history of anatomical science’Google Scholar, in Life of Richard Owen, op. cit. (3), vol. 2, pp. 273–332, p. 313.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ Hodge, M.J.S., ‘England’, in Click, T.F. (ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, Austin and London, 1974, pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ Desmond makes this point with respect to Owen's leanings towards Geoffroyian transcendental anatomy: 1984, op. cit. (102), pp. 218–219.

¹⁶² Hugh Miller referred to the author of Vestiges as ‘the most popular contemporary expounder of Oken's hypothesis’, Miller, H., Footprints of the Creator, 4th edn., Edinburgh (1851), p. 274.Google Scholar See also the Athenaeum review of Oken's Physiophilosophy, 2 October 1847.

¹⁶³ Sedgwick, A., A Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge, 5th edn., Cambridge, 1850, Supplement to the Appendix, pp. 283, 230.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ Ibid., Preface, p. ccxiv; see also pp. ccvi–ccxviii.

¹⁶⁵ Owen, to Powell, , 26 01 1850Google Scholar, cited in Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 46Google Scholar; Note 141.

¹⁶⁶ Manchester Spectator, 22 12 1849, p. 4Google Scholar. Brooke has republished Owen's letter entire, 1977, op. cit.(9), p. 143.

¹⁶⁷ Manchester Spectator, 22 12 1849, p. 4.Google Scholar Owen preserved the entire ‘Puseyite’ response along with his own letter to the editor, see Note 145.

¹⁶⁸ See Note 166.

¹⁶⁹ See Desmond, A., ‘Artisan resistance and evolution in Britain 1819–1848’Google Scholar, Osiris, forthcoming.

¹⁷⁰ Sedgwick wanted information on the incidence of larval sexual precocity (paedogenesis), and asked: ‘… with low animals which have more than one larva type, and exhibit the parthenogenesis of certain forms, the ultimate form, or perfect animal is always of one specific type. Is it not so?’ Sedgwick to Owen, 1850, op. cit. (93). To which Owen, as the strict inductivist, responded, keeping to the facts and giving no hint of his heretical speculations: ‘not any of these facts of larval fecundity … support… “progressive development”. The most complex cases of Parthenogenesis only show a more roundabout way of arriving at the specific structure from which the generative process started.’ Owen to Sedgwick, ibid., f. 285; cf. Owen, , 1860 (61), pp. 502–503Google Scholar, Note 69.

¹⁷¹ Sedgwick, , 1850, op. cit. (163), Preface, p. ccxxvii.Google Scholar

¹⁷² Political considerations aside, Desmond makes the point that Owen's ‘timing was inopportune’. His transcendentalism was out of phase with the growing positivism and secular naturalism of contemporary science. Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 48.Google Scholar

¹⁷³ Desmond, ibid., pp. 41, 79–80.

¹⁷⁴ Ibid., Chapter 2.

¹⁷⁵ See references, Notes 2, 7 and 102.

¹⁷⁶ Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), p. 78Google Scholar; Lenoir, , op. cit. (114), pp. 263–270.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁷ See Desmond's remarks on the London ‘idealist community’ of the 1860s (those like Argyll and Mivart who championed Owen's views) and their lack of an effective power base by comparison with die pro-Darwinian scientific naturalists: Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 176–177.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁸ Owen, R., ‘On metamorphosis and metagenesis’, Notices of the Meetings of the Royal Institution, 7 02 1851, pp. 9–16.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁹ Owen, , 1858, op. cit. (69), p. liGoogle Scholar. See Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 62.

¹⁸¹ [Huxley, T.H.], ‘The vestiges of creation’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, (1854), XIII, pp. 425–439.Google Scholar See Ruse's comments on this review, 1979, op. cit. (7), p. 143.

¹⁸² Huxley, , ‘Owen's position in the history of anatomical science’, op. cit. (159), pp. 312–320.Google Scholar

¹⁸³ Ibid., pp. 320–330. See Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), Chs. 1 and 2Google Scholar; Ruse, , 1979, op. cit. (7), Ch. 6.Google Scholar Both Desmond and Ruse offer a revisionist interpretation of the Owen-Huxley clashes of the fifties, and Ruse suggests that Huxley's ‘baiting of Owen’ in the fifties pushed Owen into opposition to Darwinism, pp. 144–145.

¹⁸⁴ See Owen's comments facing pp. 84, 85 in his personal copy of On the Nature of Limbs, op. cit. (145). Note also the quotation inside the front cover.

¹⁸⁵ Owen, , 1860, op. cit. (61), p. 511.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁶ Powell, R.S.S. Baden, Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation, London, 1855, pp. 333, 365–411 (n.b. pp. 400–401), 456–457.Google Scholar See also Desmond, , 1982, op. cit. (2), pp. 46–47Google Scholar; Bowler, , op. cit. (7), p. 103.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁷ ‘I am much obliged to thy striking out the passage on the possible organic origin of all things’, Barry, to Owen, , 11 09, [1854], BM(NH), OC, vol. 2, ff. 303–304.Google Scholar I am aware of the ambiguity of this passage, and I have been unable to trace the publication to which it refers. Nevertheless, it seems likely that Barry, who died not long after this was written, was another of those von Baerians who saw in embryogenesis a model for the derivation of species. Darwin's famous diagram of divergence in The Origin could be superimposed over Barry's 1837 ‘Tree of Animal Development’. Barry, like Owen, was also influenced by Geoffroy, and certain of his 1837 statements could be given an evolutionary interpretation: Barry, , 1836–1837, op. cit. (28), pp. 362–363.Google Scholar See also Note 41. In any case, Owen's censorship of this (admittedly ambiguous) passage, illustrates my point of the degree of caution he had adopted in the post-1849 period.

¹⁸⁸ I have discussed this elsewhere. See Richards, E., ‘Darwin and the descent of woman’, in Oldroyd, D. and Langham, I. (eds), The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, Dordrecht, 1983, pp. 57–111, pp. 87–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸⁹ Bowler, , op. cit. (7), Ch. 5Google Scholar; Ospovat, , 1976, op. cit. (7), and 1981, op. cit. (12), Ch. 5Google Scholar; Desmond, , 1982, op. cit., Chs. 1 and 2 and passim; 1985, op. cit. (16), p. 49.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁰ Ospovat, , 1981, op. cit. (12), pp. 159–165, 174–176.Google Scholar

¹⁹¹ Huxley, , ‘Owen's position in the history of anatomical science,’ op. cit. (159), p. 299, fn.Google Scholar

¹⁹² Ibid., p. 320. In a period when embryology was assuming increasing importance as an arbiter in settling questions of comparative anatomy, Owen fought a rear-guard action against this trend. Thus Owen, in contrast to Huxley, refused to regard embryology as the criterion of homology. See Russell, , op. cit. (23), Ch. 10.Google Scholar However, although they received short shrift from Huxley, Owen had cogent reasons for his stance, and they were consistent with his conception of development: Owen, , On the Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. 1, London (1866), pp. xxi–xxv.Google Scholar

¹⁹³ See Huxley, to Leuckart, , 1859Google Scholar, in Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (ed. Huxley, L.), 2 vols., London, 1900, vol. 1, pp. 162–163Google Scholar; see also Huxley, to Darwin, , 1859Google Scholar, ibid., p. 175. See also references in Note 183.

¹⁹⁴ Lenoir, , op. cit. (114), pp. 263–270.Google Scholar