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OWEN, RICHARD (b. Lancaster, England, 20 July
1804; d. Richmond Park, London, England,
18 December 1892), comparative anatomy, vertebrate
paleontology, geology.
investigated the matter to his own satisfaction, and
incorporated his opposing findings in his teaching
without publishing them. When Owen repeated his
views in a discussion following another's paper at the
1860 meeting of the British Association in Oxford,
Huxley was prepared to contradict Owen directly and
publicly, stating that he would give evidence to support
his contradiction in a more appropriate place. This
Huxley did, with the assistance of others, particularly
Flower, in a series of publications from 1860 to 1863.
Owen simply failed to see certain anatomical structures
and relationships. He appears to have operated on the
assumption that man possessed unique mental capabilities
and that any such unique capabilities must
be based in some unique anatomical structure or
structures; therefore man could be distinguished from
the anthropoid apes by just such structures. Not to be
ignored is the fact that many considered Owen to be
the preeminent anatomist of his time, and he had held
two prominent positions in the British scientific
community. In contrast, Darwin had not held any
similar position and had already retired, seemingly, to
the country; and Huxley, who had backed the
argumentative Owen into a corner, was a relative
youngster in 1860. These personal factors must have
played a role in this whole controversy.
Owen's comparative-anatomical and paleontological
work is in the best Cuvierian tradition and perhaps
comparable only to that of Cuvier. At the same time
Owen was guided by a strong affinity to that school of
thought which strongly repelled Cuvier--German
Naturphilosophie. This affinity is amply evidenced by
Owen's further development of the idea of a vertebral
archetype, promulgated by Goethe and Carus, in his
On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate
Skeleton (1848), his Anatomy of Fishes (1846), and On
the Nature of Limbs (1849). It was hardly coincidence
that Owen was instrumental in having Oken's
Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie translated and published
in London in 1847. Also, Owen wrote the article
“Oken” for the eighth edition of Encyclopaedia
Britannica. Through his elaboration of his theory of
archetypes, Owen provided a major assist to the
much-needed standardization of anatomical nomenclature
and greatly clarified the distinction between the
anatomical concepts of homology and analogy. In
addition, from the Naturphilosophen Owen acquired
the notion of a specific character resulting from the
interaction of two opposing forces working within the
developing embryo. His view that one species might
develop from another by “an innate tendency to
deviate from the parental type” meshes well with the
developmental forces he saw operative in each
individual.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. ORIGINAL WORKS.
There are more than 600 titles in
Owen's bibliography. The greatest bulk of his papers are
in the collections of the British Museum (Natural History).
These include correspondence, notebooks, drafts of papers,
and interleaved copies of most of his own books. The
Royal College of Surgeons has a smaller but important
collection of Owen's papers, mostly dating from the period
when he was there. In addition, letters by Owen are to be
found in the papers of his many correspondents.
The most important of Owen's separate publications
include Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus (Nautilus Pompilius,
Linn.) (London, 1832); Descriptive and Illustrative Catalogue
of the Physiological Series of Comparative Anatomy,
5 vols. (London, 1833-1840); Fossil Mammalia, pt. 1 of
The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S “Beagle”
(London,
1840); Odontography; or a Treatise on the Comparative
Anatomy of the Teeth; Their Physiological Relations,
Mode of Development, and Microscopic Structure in the
Vertebrate Animals (London, 1840-1845); On the Archetype
and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (London, 1848);
On the Classification and Geographical Distribution of
the Mammalia, Being the Lecture on Sir Robert Rede's
Foundation (London, 1859); Palaeontology, or a Systematic
Summary of Extinct Animals and Their Geological Relations
(Edinburgh, 1860; 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1861); and On
the Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates, 3 vols.
(London, 1866-1868). The Life of Sir Richard Owen,
cited below, contains an exhaustive chronological bibliography
of about 650 items; this is the most complete listing
of his works.
II. SECONDARY LITERATURE.
The most important source
for Owen's life and work is by his grandson, Rev. Richard
Owen, The Life of Sir Richard Owen (London, 1894),
which contains an essay by Thomas Henry Huxley,
“Owen's Position in the History of Anatomical Science,”
II, 273-332, and the bibliography cited above, II, 333-382.
See also William Henry Flower, “Richard Owen,” in
Dictionary of National Biography, XIV (1894-1895),
1329-1338.