A scientific naturalist who lived in England in the second quarter of this present century may be accounted a fortunate man. 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 to 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. How did he effect this? 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 to be regretted that such a man has not found a biographer more competent than his grandson and namesake; but 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 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, 20 July, 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 Spanish-looking, with dark eyes and hair. Owen delighted to dwell on his mother’s charm of manner, and 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 even led her 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 schooldays 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.’