ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 243 



research, are scattered everywhere ; and every chip and frag- 

 ment that bears on it the impress of organic structure, 

 however worthless it may appear to him Avho stumbles 

 against it, may be the means not only of restoring a new 

 form to the life of a former epoch, but the means of sug- 

 gesting the connection that leads to the determination of 

 some great creational law. Much as has been done within 

 the last twenty years, we still stand greatly in need of 

 additional data; and without an extensive array of facts 

 whereon to found our generalisations, the laws that regu- 

 late the great cosmical evolution of vitality must remain, 

 in a proportional degree, uncertain and obscure. Nor let 

 it be thought that any devotion to palaeontology to the 

 "stocks and stones" of the sneerers at science will ever 

 lessen our love for the fresh and beautiful in existing na- 

 ture. To him who has traced with appreciation the long 

 line of vegetable evolution, the flowers will bloom with, 

 new lustre, the woodlands with fresh verdure, and the 

 solemn forest-growths inspire unwonted adoration and awe. 

 To the student of the Past the lowest shell-fish may claim 

 an ancestry that excites new interest; the meanest reptile 

 may retain some curious feature of its gigantic prototypes; 

 and some obscure and solitary quadruped may be the last 

 of a line that once held regal sway in the forests of pre- 

 human epochs. As the existing throws new light on the 

 extinct, so the extinct adds fresh interest to the existing ; 

 and thus, to the paleontologist, the study of life becomes 

 not only a more exciting pursuit, but a higher and more 

 ennobling theme. 



Besides these intellectual advantages, there are others of 

 a moral kind that spring indirectly from the study of 

 palaeontology. There is no other science, perhaps, that 

 tends to engender so much the feeling of community ; none 

 that connects more closely the whole of animated nature 



