THE SCIENCE OF PALAEONTOLOGY 3 



the relative modernity of such evidence. On both 

 geological and biological grounds, it is possible to 

 argue that the records of life may cover but half, or 

 less than half, of the history of life itself. It is thus 

 with all forms of historical inquiry; knowledge passes 

 back into uncertainty, uncertainty into legend, and 

 legend into mythology; while beyond is a region 

 where inference, and finally imagination, are freed from 

 the inconvenient control of facts or even of verifiable 

 hypotheses. It is not the purpose of the present work 

 to roam through, still less to cultivate, those Elysian 

 fields; so that the ultimate limit of palaeontological 

 investigation may be taken at the oldest known fossil 

 whose organic qualities are biologically demonstrable. 



The opposite boundary of the province of Palaeon- 

 tology is even less definite. At what distance from the 

 feet of a Palaeontologist do the domains of Biology (in 

 which territory he is a lifelong prisoner) come to an 

 end ? The carcass of the last member of a race now 

 extinct would not serve as a landmark. It is at least 

 possible that some species or variety that is in existence 

 while these words are being written may have died out 

 completely before they are read, The arrival of Man 

 as an intelligent inhabitant of the Earth affords no 

 better criterion, if only for the reason that the time of 

 his appearance in that capacity is unknown. The 

 Palaeontologist must needs study the fauna and flora 

 of the current geological period, sharing with the 

 Biologist the evidence thereby afforded, and applying 

 it to the special problems with which he has to deal. 

 In ordinary practice, the division between Biology and 

 Palaeontology may be taken at the line where the 

 Pleistocene is succeeded by the Holocene ; but this is, 

 at best, an ill-defined datum. 



The indefinite character of its boundaries (a quality 



