46 Mr. T. H. Huxley on the Method of Paleontology. 



tural peculiarities were invariably associated, in another set 

 others, and he would thus arrive at precisely the same laws 

 of morphological correlation*, and at the same classification of 

 these dead forms as that which we have reached from our 

 study of the living ones. He would not term Lions and Tigers 

 and Wolves " Carnivora/^ for he would not even know that they 

 eat anything, but he would assuredly form a group with pretty 

 nearly the same limits as the Carnivora, simply because all these 

 animals resemble one another, and differ from the rest in certain 

 peculiarities of dentition, &c. So again, he would group Oxen 

 and Sheep and Deer together, because they present correspond-T 

 ing coexistences of structure, though, knowing nothing of their 

 digestive processes, he would not call them " Ruminantia/^ 



And now, after our imaginary being had made himself ac- 

 quainted with the whole series of forms before ^ him, and had 

 established his great laws of morphological correlation and his 

 classification, suppose that a mass of fragments of other crea-^ 

 tures, more or less similar to those which he had first familiarized 

 himself with, were placed before him, and he were desired to put 

 these fragments together, and to reconstruct these dismemberedf 

 forms, how would he proceed ? Suppose the first bone whicH 

 came to hand very closely resembled the jaw of a Deer, would he 

 not naturally conclude — could he logically escape the conclusion 

 — that in all probability the skull and limbs which belonged 

 to this jaw were like those of a Deer also ? And finally, sup-^ 

 posing that, guided by this strong probability, he had selected a 

 complete deer skeleton from the mass, all of whose parts were in 

 such proportion to one another and to the jaw first discovered/^ 

 as to accord perfectly with his already ascertained laws of corre-" 

 lation of form in the Deer species, could the validity of his resto- 

 ration be questioned, because he knew nothing about the pur- 

 poses of all these parts or their physiological correlation ? 



What additional certainty would he gain by now learning 

 that the Deer had once lived — that it was herbivorous — that its 

 teeth and internal organs were all exquisitely adjusted to its 

 mode of life ? He would say. That is all very beautiful, and I 

 am very glad to know it ; but such considerations did not in ' 

 the least help me to pick out the bones which belonged to the 

 jaw, nor do they add a grain of certainty to that which I already 

 feel as to the justice of my restoration. Indeed, my method 

 tells me a great deal that yours is quite silent about. I knew 

 empirically that the kind of tooth and jaw placed before me was 



* Except so far as he would be deprived of the advantage of the study 

 of development. This, however, obviously by no means interferes with the 

 validity of the general argument. 



