CHAPTER XII 



KARL VON ZITTEL. THE UNCERTAINTIES 

 AND DECEPTIONS OF PAL.EONTOLOG1CAL EVOLUTION 



The Handbuch der Paloeontologie* A warning against the ex- 

 aggerations of Trans form ism Phylogeny and Ontogeny Dangers 

 of the phylogenic method An appeal to prudence. 



PALEONTOLOGY in the course of the nineteenth 

 century made marvellous progress. The unceasing 

 flow of discoveries of fossil animals on all sides and 

 in all countries had begun to render difficult even 

 to specialists, the task of keeping pace with these 

 new facts disseminated in numerous papers in very 

 various languages. Not only did the field of palae- 

 ontology thus become considerably enlarged, but 

 new roads were opened since the study of fossils 

 was no longer a simple dependency of geology, or 

 a practical method for settling the age of the globe's 

 strata. By the light of the hypothesis of evolu- 

 tion, palaeontology conquered its independence, and 

 now advanced, on an equality with biology, to the 

 discovery of the history of the development of 

 beings and of the general laws which preside over 

 these incessant transformations. 



Admirably fitted by important special researches 

 on nearly all the groups of fossil animals radiolaria, 



* Miinchen, 1876. The English version, the first volume of which 

 was published in 1900, offers some advantages. ED. 



109 



