50 Mr. T. H. Huxley on the Method of Palceontologi^. 



applied to palaeontology, nothing more erroneous than the 

 popular notion, too much favoured by his own language, that his 

 method essentially consisted in reasoning from supposed physio-^ 

 logical necessities. In the lecture above referred to, I not only" 

 maintained this view, but I further asserted, and endeavoured 

 to prove, that not only are popular and other writers thus 

 mistaken in interpreting Cuvier, but that Cuvier himself was 

 in error in ascribing to the laws of physiological correlation 

 that primary importance in palaeontology which he undoubtedly 

 does give them. I brought forward, in fact, the doctrine which 

 I have argued at greater length in the preceding pages, viz. that 

 palaeontology, so far as it consists in the restoration of extinct 

 forms, is entirely based upon deductions from the empirical laws 

 of morphology ; that its conclusions, so far, would be as valid if 

 the whole science of physiology were non-extant, and if wc kne^ 

 nothing of final causes or adaptations to purposes. 



The publication of the abstract of the lecture has elicited a 

 brusque attack from Dr. Falconer, which, coming as it did from 

 the pen of a palaeontologist of high repute, caused me at first, I 

 must confess, no slight alarm ; the more so as Dr. Falconer, in 

 his laudable desire at once to extinguish heresy, had, I found, 

 taken the somewhat unusual course of widely circulating his 

 little pamphlet. 



The perusal of Dr. Falconer^s essay, however,, soon relieved 

 me from my only real source of uneasiness, by demonstrating 

 very clearly that Dr. Falconer had been far too much in a hurry 

 either to master the real question in dispute, to read what I had 

 written with attention, or to quote me with common accuracy 

 and fairness. In fact, I have not the good fortune to be among 

 the " tantis viris '^ de quibus " modeste tamen et circum- 

 specto judicio pronuntiandum est,^^ and it is clearly in Dr. 

 Falconer's opinion not worth while to use much circumspection 

 in dealing with the opinions of mere ordinary '' viri.^' 



The first evidence of Dr. Falconer's entire misconception of 

 the point at issue meets one in the title-page — " On Prof, 

 Huxley's attempted refutation of Cuvier's Laws of Correlation 

 in the reconstruction of extinct Vertebrate Forms." It is 

 repeated at page 477. "Nearly three-fourths of Mr. Huxley's 

 abstract are devoted to the first head, viz. Natural History, re- 

 garded as knowledge, the leading feature of which is an attempt 

 to refute the principle propounded by Cuvier, that the laws of 

 correlation which preside over the organization of animals, guided 

 him in his reconstruction of extinct Forms." Nothing can be 

 more entirely incorrect than the assertion contained in the latter 

 part of this paragraph. I did not attempt to refute any one of 

 Cuvier's laws of correlation. There is not a passage in my 



