But the knowledge is subordinate to the Gospel: it is of use, not for determining policies, but for the conviction of sin and the encouragement of virtue. The duties of men, the ideals of goodness, the roots of iniquity, the sources of goodness, lie easy and close at hand. Few are the problems that are hard with the Scriptures for guide, the Spirit for Paraclete. Far more can be done with the capitalist, the landlord, the labourer, by simple homilies from these, than from all that we can learn of the origin of capital, the title to land, or the true theory of wages. The wandering of Christianity from its ideal has not been due to the lack of casuistry, and casuistry will not bear it back: only torment scrupulous souls, perplex simple ones, and magnify for a little space once more the office of the scribe.

Thus, looking back to the past, the Church has 'guided the upward march of men,' by inspiration, not legislation. Men and Christian Socialists especially-are fond of recalling its great days, when it was shelter, ruler, champion. A halo of glory is round about it in truth; civilization it has fostered and made; but all this it has done because it sought it not. In the days of its humility, when it laboured for souls alone, it prospered, and its hand was full of bounty. In the days of its power, it became as one of the kingdoms of the world, and the fate of all earthly kingdoms fell upon it. The crown that it usurped it lost, and it is that crown and its recovery that still tempts and still allures.

ART. IV.-SIR RICHARD OWEN.

1. The Life of Richard Owen. By his Grandson, the Rev. RICHARD OWEN, M.A., with the Scientific Portions revised by C. DAVIES SHERBORN, and an Essay on Owen's Position in Anatomical Science by the Right Hon. T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S. Second edition, 2 vols. (London, 1895.) 2. Richard Owen. (Article in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xlii.) By Sir W. H. FLOWER, K.C.B. (London, 1895.)

man.

A SCIENTIFIC naturalist who lived in England in the second quarter of this present century may be accounted a fortunate On the one hand was the vast field of the universe, undivided, unallotted; on the other, a public eager for instruction. At the present day, when men go to and fro, and

knowledge is increased, we find it hard to realize the isolation of England until after the close of the great war, or the fear of invasion that absorbed men's thoughts until after Trafalgar. That fear removed, the modern development of the nation began. The number of those who resorted to the Universities increased by leaps and bounds. Public school life, as we understand it, was developed. As a natural consequence, the flower of the English youth were no longer content with the knowledge that had satisfied their fathers and grandfathers. The old paths were too narrow for them. The convulsions which had shaken the continent had not been without their effect even here; and when Europe was again open, account had to be taken of the work of Continental thinkers. Their achievements must be mastered, continued, developed. It was allowed on all hands, except by that small class who can neither learn nor forget, that the time for a new departure in scientific education had arrived. It was the good fortune of Richard Owen to be ready just when he was wanted, to take occasion by the hand, and become the leader in biological research.

How did he effect this? How did a young man, launched on the great world of London with no powerful connexions,

'Break his birth's invidious bar,

And grasp the skirts of happy chance,

And breast the blows of circumstance,
And grapple with his evil star?'

To take a metaphor from our representative system, Owen was the member for biological science in the parliament of letters for nearly half a century. And yet he was not a great thinker; his name is not associated with any far-reaching generalization, or any theory fruitful of wide results. As a comparative anatomist, and as a paleontologist, he did plenty of good and solid work. But these pursuits are most commonly those of a recluse. The man who engages in them must be content, as a general rule, with the four walls of his laboratory, and the applause of a small circle of experts. Not so Professor Owen, as he was most commonly designated, even after he had received knighthood. He contrived to lead an essentially public life; to be seen everywhere; to have his last paper talked about in fashionable drawing-rooms quite as much as in learned societies. We think that the answer to our question is to be found-first, in the general eagerness for scientific instruction which was one of the characteristics of the age in which he lived; and, secondly,

in his own many-sidedness. He was by no means one of those authors who are all author,' against whom Byron launched some of his most brilliant sarcasms. He was a man of science; but he was also a polished gentleman of varied accomplishments.

It is much to be regretted that such a man should not have found a biographer who would have done him justice. We have read The Life of Richard Owen with great care, and are reluctantly compelled to state that it is, without exception, the very worst account of a remarkable man that has come under our notice. What a chance have the writers thrown away! How valuable, how picturesque a narrative might have been composed, if only the task had fallen into competent hands! As it is we have to content ourselves with a curious collection of odds and ends-fragments of scientific papers, snippets from Mrs. Owen's diary (edited and written up to date), extracts from newspapers and magazines, with here and there a letter, all flung together without method and without accuracy-not as part of an historic record, but apparently with the frivolous intention of enumerating the number of titled persons whom the subject of it had met and the diverse societies he was thrown into. The reader who reaches the end of the second volume will be rewarded by a masterly essay by Mr. Huxley on Owen's place in science. This is a remarkable composition; not merely for what it says, but for what it does not say; and we recommend those who would understand it thoroughly, not merely to read it more than once, but to cultivate the useful art of reading between the lines. Of a very different nature to The Life of Owen is the article which Sir W. H. Flower has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography. It is of necessity much compressed, but it contains all that is really essential for the proper comprehension of Owen's scientific career, and praise and blame are meted out with calm impartiality. For ourselves, we have a sincere admiration for Owen, but an admiration which does not exclude a readiness to admit that he had some defects. In what we are about to say we do not propose to draw a fancy portrait. If we nothing extenuate, we shall set down naught in malice. In a word, we shall try to present him as he was, not as he might have been.

Richard Owen was born at Lancaster on July 20, 1804. His father was a West India merchant; his mother, Catherine Parrin, was descended from a French Huguenot family. She

is said to have been a woman of refinement and intelligence, with great skill in music, a talent which she transmitted to her son. In appearance she was handsome and Spanishlooking, with dark eyes and hair. Owen delighted to dwell on his mother's charm of manner, and on all that he owed to her early training and example. We can well believe this, and the Life is full of touching references to her solicitude for her darling son. The interest she felt in all that he did led her even to read through his scientific papers and his catalogue of the Hunterian collection, with what profit to herself we are not informed. Her husband died in 1809; but the family seem to have been left in fairly affluent circumstances, and continued to live, as before, at Lancaster. Owen's education began at the grammar-school there in 1810, when he was six years old, and ended in 1820, when he was apprenticed to a local surgeon. Of his school-days but little record has been preserved. One of the masters described him as lazy and impudent; he is said to have had no fondness for study of any kind except heraldry; and his sister used to relate that as a boy he was very small and slight, and exceedingly mischievous.' One of his schoolfellows was William Whewell, afterwards the well-known master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He had occasion to thrash Owen's elder brother; but Owen himself bore no ill-will to the inflictor of this chastisement, and remained on terms of friendly intercourse with him till his death in 1866.

Those who value the records of boyhood for the sake of traces of the tastes which made the man celebrated will be rewarded by the perusal of the pages which record Owen's four years as a surgeon's apprentice at Lancaster. Not only will they find that he worked diligently at the curative side of his profession, but that, his master being surgeon to the gaol, he had the opportunity of attending post-mortem examinations, and so laid the foundation of his knowledge of the structure of the human frame. Here too we catch a glimpse of the future comparative anatomist; but the story of 'The Negro's Head,' as Owen used to tell it himself, is unfortunately too long for quotation and too good to be spoilt by abbreviation.

In October 1824 Owen matriculated at the University of Edinburgh. There, in addition to the courses that were obligatory, he attended the outside' lectures in comparative anatomy delivered by Dr. John Barclay. From these he derived the greatest benefit, and used in after-years to speak of Barclay, with affectionate regard, as 'my revered preceptor.'

It is noteworthy that while at Edinburgh Owen and one of his friends founded a students' society, which at his suggestion was called, by a sort of prophetic instinct, the Hunterian Society. Barclay must have decided very quickly that he had to do with no common pupil, for at the end of April 1825, when Owen had been barely six months in Edinburgh, he advised him to move to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and study under Dr. Abernethy, then near the close of his brilliant but eccentric career. Armed with a letter of introduction from Barclay, Owen set out for London, where he had 'literally not one single friend.' No wonder that he felt 'an indescribable sense of desolation' as he walked up Holborn, and that the number of strange faces that kept passing by increased that feeling.' What happened next is very characteristic of that strange mixture of roughness and kindness which was natural to his new patron.

'Abernethy had just finished lecturing, and was evidently in anything but the best of tempers, being surrounded by a small crowd of students waiting about to ask him questions. Owen was just screwing up his courage to attack this formidable personage and state his business, when Abernethy suddenly turned upon him and said: "And what do you want?" After presenting the letter Abernethy glanced at it for a moment, stuffed it into his pocket, and vouchsafed the gracious reply of "Oh!" As this did not seem to point to anything very definite, Owen was turning to go, when Abernethy called after him: Here; come to breakfast to-morrow morning at eight," and presenting him with his card, added, "That's my address." What were the terms in which Dr. Barclay had spoken of him Owen never knew, but he thought they must have been favourable, for when he presented himself next morning at Abernethy's residence, and was anticipating anything but an agreeable tête-à-tête with the great doctor, he found him, to his surprise, considerably smoothed down and quite pleasant in his manner. The result of the meeting was that Abernethy offered him the post of prosector for his lectures' (i. 30).

A year later (August 18, 1826) Owen obtained membership of the College of Surgeons, and set up as a medical practitioner in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he gradually obtained a small practice among lawyers.

We have no wish to underrate Owen's brilliant talents, or his perseverance, or his power of sustained work with a definite end in view; but at the same time it would be absurd to deny that he had good-fortune to thank for a large part of his first successes. What else made Abernethy, at their first interview, give him just the appointment best calculated to bring his peculiar gifts into the light of day? What else