ABSTRACT
This work consists substantially of the lectures delivered by Professor Huxley in the spring of 1863, at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in discharge of his duties as Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology to the College. Although this work may be regarded as fragmentary, consisting, as it does in the first place, of six lectures on the Classification of Animals, and eight lectures on the Vertebrate Skull, the author hopes eventually to bring out subsequently other courses of lectures, and thus to produce a systematic work on Comparative Anatomy. Those who have in any manner regarded the publications of Professor Huxley, will be glad of the prospect of having presented to them a systematic view of the opinions held by one who has distinguished himself by his contributions to almost every department of zoological and physiological inquiry. Professor Huxley says, with regard to this work, that in intention therefore the present work is the first of a series, to be followed in due order by a second volume on “Man and the other Primates,” and a third on the remaining Mammalia, and so on. As far as the inquiries with the microscope are concerned, we must content ourselves with drawing attention to those parts of the present volume which are devoted to the classification of animals. We cannot pretend to follow Professor Huxley into those details which lead him to differ with Professor Owen with regard to the theoretical structure of the vertebrate skull. We can only say, with regard to this second part of his work, that it will afford to all students of comparative anatomy, an example of how great is the power of analysis demanded of, and how wide are the inquiries of, the philosophical anatomist. It is only in a very subsidiary way that the minute inquiries of the microscopist can assist the anatomical.philosopher in arriving at the general laws which regulate the morphology of the higher classes of the animal kingdom.
