FOURTH LECTURE. 



THE METHODS OF PALAEONTOLOGICAL 

 INQUIRY. 



W. B. SCOTT. 



IT is one of the misfortunes connected with the vastly 

 expanded knowledge of nature which characterizes the present 

 era, that the capacity of the human mind does not expand in 

 equal proportion. No one can ever hope to grasp the full 

 meaning of the enormous and ever-growing accumulations of 

 facts, and the investigator is compelled, whether he likes it or 

 not, to become a specialist and to devote himself to the culti- 

 vation of a narrow field. The manifold disadvantages which 

 necessarily accompany such a division of labor are obvious and 

 need no commentary here. Suffice it to mention that one such 

 drawback, which has profound and far-reaching effects, is the 

 loss of sympathy and " touch " between workers in closely allied 

 subjects. The investigator can, therefore, render useful service 

 to his fellows in other fields of inquiry by occasionally bringing 

 before them the results which he has attained, and in pointing 

 out the questions of common interest to which all may contribute. 



It is not enough, however, merely to exhibit results, even 

 though stripped of all technical verbiage and made thoroughly 

 clear and intelligible; the methods by which these results have 

 been reached must also be made perfectly plain and submitted 

 for examination. We all have a healthy skepticism regarding 

 methods of which we are quite ignorant, unless they happen to 

 be mathematical, when they are apt to be accepted unquestion- 

 ingly and blindly, as though they were the oracles of the gods. 



In view of this fact, I have thought that it might be of 

 interest to an assembly of biologists to give an account of 



