364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



those to whose advanced views he felt that the scientific world could 

 not entirely subscribe, and admirably illustrating what he interpreted 

 to be the prevailing opinion, as shown by the following quotation : 



Although this Darwinian hypothesis is looked upon by many as striking 

 at the root of all vital faith, and is the hete noire of all those good men who 

 deplore and condemn the materialistic tendency of modern science, still the 

 purity of life of the author of the " Origin of Species," his enthusiastic devo- 

 tion to the study of truth, the industry and acumen which have marked his 

 researches, the candor and caution with which his suggestions have been made, 

 all combine to render the obloquy and scorn with which they have been 

 received in many quarters, peculiarly unjust and in bad taste. 



This was also the first year of the American Naturalist, edited by 

 those four pupils of Agassiz — Packard, Morse, Hyatt and Putnam — 

 of whom two are still spared. The introduction of the charming first 

 volume of this characteristic American publication is suflicient proof 

 that at the time of its issue even the younger men felt that there were 

 two distinct schools of thought relative to the " Origin of Species " — 

 Those who are familiar with this introduction will remember that it is 

 illuminated with one of Morse's inimitable sketches, a snail peering 

 through a binocular microscope, symbolical, doubtless, of the slow- 

 ness of perception of those who clung to this archaic instrument and 

 possibly also of those who cling to archaic ideas. 



The following year, 1868, the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, which in 1860 had elected Darwin to membership, 

 published the first important direct contribution to the subject of 

 evolution made by one not directly under the influence of the Boston 

 academies. This contribution, " On the Origin of Genera," was made 

 by Cope, who for several years had been submitting papers to the 

 academy of a descriptive and semi-speculative character, and largely 

 dealing with the classification of reptiles. I believe that I am perfectly 

 safe in saying that no academy in America has ever published a paper 

 that reflects more to its credit than this extraordinary essay of Cope. 

 It is apologetically issued as a fragment, but in it there are shown an 

 intimate acquaintance with anatomical detail that is almost super- 

 natural, an independence of thought that is extraordinary, a power of 

 analysis that stuns the reader, an estimate of the weak and the strong 

 points of the Darwinism theory that is masterly, an agility of logic 

 that marks its author as a dangerous antagonist, an energy to reach the 

 truth, and an impetuosity to convince others of truth, that is pro- 

 phetic, indeed, that is completely demonstrative of pent-up mental 

 power, which must have been most disturbing to those of his academy 

 who had nestled down into positions of comfortable intellectuality. 



We now enter upon the five years of acute activity. 



On December 15, 1871, Cope attended a meeting of the American 

 Philosophical Society, and presented his paper on " The Method of 

 Creation of Organic Forms." In a fortnight a reply was given, which 

 began with a quotation from Job : " I am a brother to dragons and a 



