THE SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS OF 1863 149 



regular camps of scientists. Humanity is adduced 

 as the one party ; against it stands the anarchist, 

 trying to blow up the work of centuries, Darwin. 

 But that gave no concern to the young orator; 

 he saw a whole decade of success in the first 

 attack. 



He rolled off geology. Cuvier's theory of 

 catastrophes, Linne's belief in the immutability 

 of species all a purely theological cosmogony. 

 The " philosophical theory of evolution " rises 

 behind it like a Mene Tekel Pharshim. 



All living things, including those of past 

 geological epochs, form one great genealogical tree. 

 The word, the new leading word for zoology and 

 botany, comes out with a flash. What is the 

 system that has been awaited so long ? It is 

 the genealogical tree of life on our planet. Its 

 roots lie deep in the remote past. "The thousands 

 of green leaves on the tree that clothe the younger 

 and fresher twigs, and differ in their height and 

 breadth from the trunk, correspond to the living 

 species of animals and plants ; these are the more 

 advanced, the further they are removed from the 

 primeval stem. The withered and faded leaves, 

 that we see on the older and dead twigs, represent 

 the many extinct species that dwelt on the earth 

 in earlier geological ages, and come closer to the 

 primeval simple stem-form, the more remote they 

 are from us." 



This was the great new idea for science to 

 work upon. Paleontology, the science of past 

 life, found at last a common task with botany 



