IT PROGRESS OF PALAEONTOLOGY 27 



present knowledge of the facts of palaeontology 

 and of those conclusions from them which are in- 

 disputable, has been attained ; and I beg leave to 

 remind you, at the outset, that in attempting to 

 sketch the progress of a branch of knowledge to 

 which innumerable labours have contributed, my 

 business is rather with generalisations than with 

 details. It is my object to mark the epochs of 

 palaeontology, not to recount all the events of its 

 history. 



That which I just now called the fundamental 

 problem of palaeontology, the question which has 

 to be settled before any other can be profitably 

 discussed, is this, What is the nature of fossils ? 

 Are they, as the healthy common sense of the 

 ancient Greeks appears to have led them to 

 assume without hesitation, the remains of animals 

 and plants ? Or are they, as was so generally 

 maintained in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven- 

 teenth centuries, mere figured stones, portions of 

 mineral matter which have assumed the forms of 

 leaves and shells and bones, just as those portions 

 of mineral matter which we call crystals take on 

 the form of regular geometrical solids ? Or, again, 

 are they, as others thought, the products of the 

 germs of animals and of the seeds of plants which 

 have lost their way, as it were, in the bowels 

 of the earth, and have achieved only an imperfect 

 and abortive development ? It is easy to sneer at 

 cur ancestors for being disposed to reject the first 



