Another point of resemblance between Cuvier and von Baer was that Cuvier, though essentially a student of adult structure, did recognise the importance of embryology; following up some observations of Dutrochet he studied the foetal membrane of mammals and tried to establish their homologies.[180] And in his criticism of the vertebral theory of the skull he advanced as an argument against the basisphenoid being a vertebral centrum the fact (established by Kerkring, 1670), that it develops from two centres.[181] Von Baer's relation to transcendental anatomy was in some ways a close one, though he was a trenchant critic of the extreme views of the school.[182] He took from Oken the idea that a simple fundamental plan rules the organisation of all Vertebrates; "That jaws and limbs are modifications of one fundamental form is readily apparent, and, after Oken, the fact ought to be accepted by the majority of those naturalists who do not refuse to admit the existence of a general type from which the diversity of structure is developed" (i., p. 192). He accepted the vertebral theory of the skull in its main lines, and used his embryological knowledge to support the idea that jaws correspond to limbs--the latter point as part of the transcendental idea that the hind end of the body repeats the organisation of the anterior part (i., p. 192). The particular form which his theory of the relation of jaws to limbs took is shown in the following passage:--"The maxillary bone has ... the significance of an extremity and at the same time that of a rib or lower arch of a vertebra, just as the pelvic bones unite in themselves the signification of ribs and proximal members of the hinder extremity" (Meckel's _Archiv_, p. 367, 1826).