186 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
a macerating trough? Cuvier, and Louis Agassiz, and 
Huxley, and Owen did not and do not think so; but it seems 
to me that almost all present day working biologists look 
upon the extinct creatures, whose remains geology has 
revealed to us, as having nothing to do with the present life 
of the globe at all. One would have thought that the 
popularity of the doctrine of evolution would have invested 
the study of ancient life with a special interest in the eyes 
of our younger biologists,—but it is not so. They cut their 
embryos into thousands of sections, which they dye red and 
blue and yellow, and from what they see there, they con- 
struct genealogical trees showing how everything has been 
derived up from the very origin of protoplasm; but they 
seldom ask if the mode of branching of their tree is cor- 
roborated or the reverse by what we actually know of the past 
history of life on the globe. Or if it does strike them that a 
corroboration from paleontology would add interest to their 
views,—instead of finding out what are the most recently 
ascertained facts on the subject, and acquiring some practical 
knowledge of them as well, they will probably go to some 
mere text-book, and copy from it some antiquated figure, 
which they may not even understand, and from it find 
startling confirmation of their theory—for example, that 
vertebrates are descended from Arachnida. Do not suppose, 
for a moment, that I am so ignorant or insane as to 
speak slightingly of embryological research—all that I 
mean is, that it does not constitute the whole of biological 
science ! 
In his British Association address, Professor Flower 
remarks that—‘“ For the perpetuation of the unfortunate 
separation of paleontology from biology . . . the faulty 
organisation of our museums is in a great measure respon- 
sible. The more their rearrangement can be made to 
overstep and break down the abrupt line of demarcation 
which is still almost universally drawn between beings 
which live now, and those which have lived in past times, 
so deeply rooted in the popular mind, and so hard to 
eradicate even from that of the scientific student, the better 
it will be for the progress of sound biological knowledge.” 
