Grundzüge der Anatomic der wirbellosen Thiere

Abstract

SO far as we know, amongst the many German textbooks on anatomy and physiology there is not a single one which is at all carried out on the plan of Huxley's Manual of the Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals. The great merits of the work appear to us to be, firstly, that it combines up to a certain point the features of a treatise on comparative anatomy and on zoology, and secondly, that by the introduction of a description of a type selected from each group, the learner is both greatly assisted in the practical study of animal morphology and also supplied with certain definite centres round which to group the multitudinous facts which he learns in the course of his reading. We flattered ourselves that by the translation of this work into German we should to some extent repay our Teutonic neighbours for the many text-books we hare received from them. Our belief that this work was likely to be appreciated in Germany has, however, been very rudely dispelled. We learn from the distinguished naturalist who has undertaken the translation, and whose large experience (we believe his name has been before the public for so long a period as two or three years) gives corresponding weight to his opinion that the work is neither a handbook nor a text-book. He informs us in his preface that “he has decided not to give the work the title of handbook, in order to avoid labelling it with a title which it does not deserve” (um dem Buche nicht einen Anspruch unterzuschieben, den es nicht erheben will). “It is,” he goes on to say, “no handbook in the sense customary with us, and indeed can be regarded as a text-book (Lehrbuch) only in the sense that it is intended for learners.” In fact, on the unimpeachable authority of Dr. Spengel, Prof. Huxley's Manual of Invertebrata, which has already become the acknowledged handbook in England, is quite unworthy of such a position. In this country we have been accustomed in our simplemindedness to think that Prof. Huxley possesses a singular talent for exposition, while his reputation amongst us as an anatomist is based on our belief that his knowledge of anatomical facts is as wide and extensive and as well kept up as his critical judgment is acute, and his treatment of morphological problems broad and original. We have for some time past been under the idea that Prof. Huxley has had a good deal to do with the progress of animal morphology during the last twenty or thirty years. But we live to learn, and we feel very grateful that a man of Dr. Spengel's standing should show us how imperfect and unequal (lückenhaft und ungleich-mässig) is Prof. Huxley's treatment of the subject to which he has devoted his life.

Grundzüge der Anatomie der wirbellosen Thiere.

Thomas H. Huxley Autorisirte deutsche Ausgabe, von Dr. J. W. Spengel. (Leipzig, 1878.)