which he had observed. ("Following up Rathke, he strove to substitute for the then dominant fantastic doctrines of the homologies of the cranial elements advocated by Owen, sounder views based on embryological evidence.  He exposed the futility of attempting to regard the skull as a series of segments, in each of which might be recognised all the several parts of a vertebra, and pointed out the errors of trusting to superficial resemblances of shape and position.  He showed, by the history of the development of each, that, though both skull and vertebral column are segmented, the one and the other, after an early stage, are fashioned on lines so different as to exclude all possibility of regarding the detailed features of each as mere modifications of a type repeated along the axis of the body.  ’The spinal column and the skull start from the same primitive condition, whence they immediately begin to diverge.’  ’It may be true to say that there is a primitive identity of structure between the spinal or vertebral column and the skull; but it is no more true that the adult skull is a modified vertebral column than it would be to affirm that the vertebral column is modified skull.’  This lecture marked an epoch in England in vertebrate morphology, and the views enunciated in it carried forward, if somewhat modified, as they have been, not only by Huxley’s subsequent researches and by those of his disciples, but especially by the splendid work of Gegenbauer, are still, in the main, the views of the anatomists of to-day.”—­Sir M. Foster, Royal Society Obituary Notice of T.H.  Huxley.)

With the demolition of Oken’s theory fell the superstructure raised by its chief supporter, Owen, “archetype” and all.

It was undoubtedly a bold step to challenge thus openly the man who was acknowledged as the autocrat of science in Britain.  Moreover, though he had long felt that on his own subjects he was Owen’s master, to begin a controversy was contrary to his deliberate practice.  But now he had the choice of submitting to arbitrary dictation or securing himself from further aggressions by dealing a blow which would weaken the authority of the aggressor.  For the growing antagonism between him and Owen had come to a head early in the preceding year, when the latter, taking advantage of the permission to use the lecture-theatre at Jermyn Street for the delivery of a paleontological course, unwarrantably assumed the title of Professor of Paleontology at the School of Mines, to the obvious detriment of Huxley’s position there.  His explanations not satisfying the council of the School of Mines, Huxley broke off all personal intercourse with him.

CHAPTER 1.11.

1857-1858.

Throughout this period his health was greatly tried by the strain of his work and life in town.  Headache! headache! is his repeated note in the early part of 1857, and in 1858 we find such entries as:—­]