352 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



is clear that the voice of the palaeontologist can only 

 be heard on the morphological aspect of the question 

 (factors of evolution), but to many of us, including 

 myself, the morphological argument is so convincing 

 that we believe that even if the Darwinian theory 

 were proved to-morrow to be utterly baseless, the 

 Doctrine of Descent would not be in the slightest 

 degree affected, but would continue to have as firm 

 a hold on our minds as before." Thus he took for 

 the theme of his Presidential Address to the zoo- 

 logical section of the British Association in 1900, 

 the palseontological evidence of Descent in the case 

 of fishes. 



Marsh said : " This revolution has influenced 

 pala3ontology as extensively as any other department 

 of science, and hence the new period. . . . To- 

 day, the animals and plants now living are believed 

 to be genetically connected with those of the distant 

 past ; and the palaeontologist no longer deems species 

 of the first importance, but seeks for relationships 

 and genealogies connecting the past with the pres- 

 ent." 



The appreciation of the true nature of fossils, the 

 recognition of palceontology as biological, the com- 

 pilation of great censuses of the extinct, the study of 

 lost races, the discovery of missing links, and the 

 adoption of the evolutionary outlook in palceontology, 

 are among the great steps in the morphological prog- 

 ress of the nineteenth century. 



MINUTE ANALYSIS. 



One of the clearest illustrations of tKe influence 

 of improvements in instruments on the progress of 



