PALEONTOLOGY, ITS AIMS AND METHOD 



By D. M. S. WATSON, M.Sc, F.Z.S., 

 Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaontology, University College, University of London 



Palaeontology is, by definition, the study of the remains 

 of living things found buried in the rocks. Dealing as it does 

 with such material, which, also by definition, falls within the 

 scope of the biologist, it is not surprising that on many occa- 

 sions and by many able men its claims to distinction have 

 been dismissed, and it has been treated as a subordinate and 

 inferior branch of the larger science. Such treatment, how- 

 ever, although it has been advocated by distinguished palaeon- 

 tologists, is unfortunate; the discovery by Wm. Smith that 

 11 Strata could be identified by the organised fossils which they 

 contain," one of those great fundamental truths that we owe 

 to British science, gives to our subject an obvious and funda- 

 mental connection with stratigraphical geology, and subse- 

 quent events have shown the light which a study of fossils 

 may throw on the conditions under which rocks were laid 

 down, and on the geographical changes which are associated 

 with their origin. This important bearing of palaeontology or 

 geology has often been advanced as the basis of its claim to 

 distinction. Such evidence is, however, not a sound founda- 

 tion. Whole regions of chemistry and physics have an equally 

 important bearing on geology, but are not on that account 

 raised to independent rank. Recognition of a science as an 

 independent branch of study must depend on a fundamental, 

 philosophical method peculiar to it. From a practical stand- 

 point it is now usual to divide the subject into a botanical and 

 a zoological half, but such division is purely an artificial one, 

 and the philosophical method of each is similar. 



If we consider the history of palaeontology we find the 

 rapid establishment of two divergent interests, one, which in 

 the early days was largely confined to those who studied 

 vertebrates, being concerned solely with the morphology of 

 the animals or plants with which it dealt ; the other, pre- 



