274 GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY ix 



that her charity is of the sort that does not 

 impoverish, but " blesseth him that gives and him 

 that takes." 



Regard the matter as we will, however, the 

 facts remain. Nearly 40,000 species of animals 

 and plants have been added to the Systema 

 Naturae by palaeontological research. This is a 

 living population equivalent to that of a new 

 continent in mere number ; equivalent to that of 

 a new hemisphere, if we take into account the 

 small population of insects as yet found fossil, and 

 the large proportion and peculiar organisation of 

 many of the Vertebrata. 



But, beyond this, it is perhaps not too much 

 to say that, except for the necessity of interpreting 

 palaeontological facts, the laws of distribution 

 would have received less careful study; while 

 few comparative anatomists (and those not of the 

 first order) would have been induced by mere 

 love of detail, as such, to study the minutiae of 

 osteology, were it not that in such minutiae lie the 

 only keys to the most interesting riddles offered 

 by the extinct animal world. 



These assuredly are great and solid gains. Surely 

 it is matter for no small congratulation that in 

 half a century (for palaeontology, though it dawned 

 earlier, came into full day only with Cuvier) a 

 subordinate branch of biology should have doubled 

 the value and the interest of the whole group 

 of sciences to which it belongs. 



