PALEONTOLOGY SINCE CUVIER. 49 



had Cuvier been able to make use of our present 

 material his conclusions would have been entirely 

 different. I have no doubt also, that our great 

 German teacher and master, Johannes Miiller, 

 would likewise have set aside his mystic ideas of 

 the origin of animals and of creation, in view of 

 the rising sun of Darwinism. 



We have, of course, no intention here of giving 

 an account of the gradual extension of palaeonto- 

 logical science itself. Our object is rather to 

 explain how palaeontology and zoology inter-pene- 

 trate and correlate with each other. And it is 

 self-evident that in doing this the newer period 

 stands prominently forward, since the revival of 

 the theory of transformations. One of the condi- 

 tions of this theory of development is the overthrow 

 of Cuvier's theory of catastrophes, and indeed it 

 was finally overthrown for all time to come when 

 Lyell, in 1832, published his famous * Principles 

 of Geology.' Lyell there proved that the earth's 

 crust does not condense and change suddenly, and 

 that the geological periods of peaceful life have 

 not been separated from each other by general 

 convulsions extending .over whole continents, but 

 that the continuity of lands and seas has never 

 been entirely interrupted, even though they have 



