52 Mr. T. 11. Huxley on the Method of Pahfontology. 



the 'utilitarian ailiiptation to jiiirpose ' been used as an instru- 

 ment ol' research '". Mr. Huxley avers that its value as such has 

 been enormously overrated. It' so, by whom has it been ever 

 used ? From the prevalence of adaj)tations and mechanisms 

 in nature suited to the jiroduction of certain ends we reason up 

 to the agency of an all -wise, powerful and beiievolent Designer. 

 But the inference is a product not an i/mtrimiciit of the research, 

 and to call it the latter is simply a misuse of terms." 



Surely Pr. Falconer can understand that adaptation to pur- 

 pose is adaptation to use, and that therefore adaptation to 

 purpose may well be said to be * utilitarian.' 



In answer to the next part of his inquiry, I must refer him to 

 Dr. M'hcwell*; and with regard to the last part, the misuse of 

 words is Dr. Falconer's. I am not speaking of any inference 

 from the princij)le, but of the principle itself. 



But the most curious proof that Dr. Falconer has not taken 

 the trouble to read with attention or think over carefully the 

 statements contained in my abstract is yielded by the passage at 

 p. 480, beginning, " ^Ir. H\ixlcy contrasts the two as opposite 

 dogmas." Dr. Falconer here takes two parts of the same argu- 

 ment, thrusts them into opposition, and is then excessively 

 puzzled to discover that he can find no "opposition or incom- 

 patibility" between them. However glad I may be to have Dr. 

 Falconer's testimony to the connexion of the two parts of my 

 argimient, even rnalfjre lui, I think he would have done well to 

 have read the passage twice before entangling himself in it. 



Dr. Falconer writes at p. 190 : — 



" This invariable coincidence may be, as has been shown above, 

 either empirical or necessary. Cuvier, like a true interpreter of 

 nature, employed both indifferently in his restorations, accord- 

 ingly as they were presented to him, and professed it. This 

 important fact is nowhere recognized by Air. Huxley, who argues 

 the ease throughout as if Cuvier had excluded the empirical and 

 admitted only of necessary correlations." 



Tiiis is in the teeth of the passage of my abstract, which Dr. 

 Falconer himself quotes at p. 487 : " And if it were necessary to 

 appeal to any authority save facts and reason, our first witness 

 would be Cuvier himself, who in a very remarkable passage, two 

 or three pages further on (Discours, pp. 18i, 185), implicitly 

 surrenders his own principle." Surely this amount of careless 

 incorrectness is hardly venial. Surely I may quote to Dr. Fal- 

 coner his own courteous words, " rarely in the history of science 

 has confident assertion been put forward in so grave a case upon 

 a more erroneous and unsubstantial foundation." 



* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 87, 88 ; and again, 

 p. 78: — " This idea of a final cause is an essential condition in order to the 

 pursuing our researcUes respecting organized bodies." 



