No. 3.] AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 153 



exercise which is involved, but I regret that much of their labor 

 is wasted, and the results will be burnt when the fires of truth 

 are applied to the chaff they are accumulating. This is not a 

 question of physics that they are arguing, it is one of metaphysics, 

 and it would be well for our children, as well as growing scientists, 

 if they were taught more of mental and moral philosophy as a 

 basis for such inquiry. But I thank the students who are thus^ 

 engaged for some good results of their exertions. They have 

 thereby succeeded in reducing the superfluous numbers of species, 

 and have obtained far better views in respect to classification. 



Good results will also flow from the profound embryological 

 researches of the day. But I am sorry for the investigators, for 

 their reputations are at stake, and they have chosen a mistaken 

 path. 



We are, however, approaching in our studies a correct theory.. 

 After its appearance in geological history, every species has a 

 plastic tendency to spread to its utmost limits of form. Then 

 ensues a period of decadence until it may become extinct. Thi& 

 has been set forth in some of my printed memoirs on the plants 

 of the carboniferous series, I believe that a similar process is 

 true of the human race. He referred to the skull of Mentone 

 and its finely developed character — a grandly developed man 

 cerebrally and bodily. The burial of his dead testified to his re- 

 ligious belief. The people of the Cromagno skull age were of a 

 similarly elevated character. The only point of difi"erence from 

 men to-day was in the flattening of one of the leg bones This 

 was perhaps a result of the habits of the tribe, running through 

 forests in pursuit of game. It begins to be admitted that the 

 man of Western Europe came in with the modern mammalia at 

 the close of the glacial period. This was a period of decadence, 

 and when the pliocene fauna were dying out and new forms were 

 taking their places. The most ancient form of man is beyond 

 the average standard of modern humanity. If the man of Cro- 

 magno or Mentone had been sent to Harvard, he would have 

 been graduated with the full honors of an average American 

 student. 



Professor Morse rose and stated that the forty minutes allow- 

 ed for this discussion would scarcely leave time to touch its salient 

 points. It was a question whose bearings might consume a 

 week in their consideration. But a few things might be said. 

 Dr. Dawson and Professor Swallow had both misquoted Huxley^ 



