NO. l8.] TRIASSIC FISHES OF CONNECTICUT. II 



which are now and ever have been at work re-shaping the world 

 since the very foundation of being. Knowledge of this sort 

 vastly enlarges our consciousness, gives to our mortality a setting 

 and perspective, dilates the mind and elevates the spirit by forc- 

 ing them to range widely over the realm of universal history. 

 It also enables us to form a relative estimate of ourselves and 

 our career by applying a larger scale of life — the scale of in- 

 finity. Clearly, therefore, the humanistic interest of paleontology 

 is very great; and considerations of this nature help determine 

 the value of any science quite apart from questions of practical 

 utility. In every science there may be a twofold yield ; one that 

 is expressed in material values, and another that is interpreted 

 in terms of the spirit. Returns of both kinds are worth striving 

 for. 



But, it may be objected by some, the facts of paleontology 

 can at best only remotely affect our traditional outlook upon 

 life. For those who are satisfied merely with the assembling of 

 facts, and look no further than a connection between them, 

 without being able to comprehend the life of thought in general, 

 this objection may hold. But the thoroughgoing inquirer insists 

 not merely upon an accumulation of dead knowledge; his mind 

 aims at an interpretation of the results of investigation, and 

 attaches to these things meanings and values. So far as relates 

 to human or universal history, the supreme value lies in under- 

 standing what has happened, in perceiving the meaning of events, 

 in grasping the principles and laws that govern organic and 

 social evolution. For this purpose the past must needs be re- 

 constructed by means of the trained imagination out of all avail- 

 able data. The more vigilant the imagination, the better his- 

 torian, and the better scientific investigator, other things being 

 equal ; for to the well-trained explorer in any science this faculty 

 is never a hindrance, but a positive advantage. Obviously, if 

 one lacks the power of transporting himself into the past, one 

 can understand nothing of the past. But once that mental 

 journey accomplished, and so soon as we acquire the habit of 

 looking at experience objectively, without immediate relation to 

 our own time and place, then, in the words of an English 

 historian (Bury), "the modern age falls into line with its pre- 

 decessors and loses its obtrusive prominence, and we come to 



