8S 
o1 
Cretaceous Formations of the West,” 1875; “The 
Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West,” 
1883; and “The Extinct Vertebrata obtained in New 
Mexico,” 1877. It was in recognition of this work that, in 
1879, he was awarded the Bigsby Medal of the Geological 
Society of London. The loss of a portion of his private 
fortune led Cope, in 1889, to accept the professorship of 
Geology and Mineralogy at Pennsylvania University. 
This post he held till 1895, when he was transferred to 
the professorship of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. 
In that year also he was elected President of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. From 1878, 
with A. S. Packard, and from 1887, with J. S. Kingsley, 
he was a chief editor of the American Naturalist, a 
journal that has had its periods of financial difficulty and 
irregular publication, but which, under Cope’s direction, 
has always been interesting, vigorous and independent, 
playing a much-needed part in a country where so much 
scientific work is under the control of political placemen. 
Cope’s zoological work has lain among the Vertebrata, 
especially their lower Classes. Beginning in 1859, with 
a paper on “ The Primary Divisions of the Salamandride,” 
published by the Philadelphia Academy, the stream of 
contributions poured out by him has reached a total of 
over four hundred. By his study of recent and fossil 
forms in conjunction, he has thrown much light on the 
history of the Reptilia and Amphibia, leading to many 
profound changes in classification. Two of his most 
important essays in this direction were those published so 
long ago as 1865-66: ‘*On the Primary Groups of the 
Batrachia Anura” and “On the Arciferous Anura.” His 
work on the extinct ancestors of the Amphibia, the direct 
progenitors also of the Mammalia, was some of the most 
successful and suggestive that he accomplished. His 
important paper on “The Systematic Relations of the 
Fishes” was published by the American Association in 
1871; much of the material on whichthis was based was the 
famous collection of skeletons made by Prof. Josef Hyrtl, 
of Vienna, and acquired by Cope for his own museum. 
Cope was one of the first to deduce the Ungulata from 
ancestors with quadri-tubercular molars, and with five- 
toed, plantigrade feet. This was in 1874; and it was he 
too, who, some ten years later, was the first to maintain 
that this type of molar in the upper jaw was derived from 
a tri-tubercular type, while in the lower jaw it was derived 
from a quinque-tubercular type, or a. tri-tubercular type 
with a heel supporting two additional tubercles. The 
additions to, and the discussions that have taken place 
around, this theory are well known. Cope’s discovery 
of Phenacodus, the celebrated fossil ancestor of the 
Ungulata, proved in his masterly hands ‘tan important 
event in the history of our knowledge of the evolution of 
the Mammalia.” The sub-order to which it belongs, 
the Condylarthra of the Lower Eocene, “stands to the 
placental Mammalia in the same relation as the Thero- 
imorphous order does to the Reptilian orders. It generalises 
the characteristics of them all, and is apparently the 
parent stock of all excepting, perhaps, the Cetacea.” 
It was not, however, Cope’s technical zoological work 
in the domain of Vertebrata, excellent though it was, that 
made him such an influence in American biology ; it was 
his constant application of his results to wider philosoph- 
ical problems, especially of evolution, both physical and 
metaphysical. He, more than any one (though the name 
of Alpheus Hyatt should not be passed by), has been the 
founder of that peculiarly American school of thought 
which has no doubt met with much opposition on both 
sides of the Atlantic, but which nevertheless has pro- 
moted discussion and investigation along many lines. 
Cope’s main contributions to the philosophy of biology 
were first brought together in that volume of suggestive 
essays entitled ‘‘ The Origin of the Fittest ” (Macmillan : 
London and New York, 1887), while his conclusions were 
summarised, and his present position stated in the 
NO. 1434, VOL. 55] 
NATURE 
[APRIL 22, 1897 
“Primary Factors of Organic Evolution” (Open Court 
Co., Chicago, 1896). That position, as was abundantly 
evident from Dr. Russel Wallace’s review of the last- 
named book in NATURE (vol. lili. p. 553), did not win 
the approval of our English ultra-Darwinians, nor, indeed, 
were the views of the American school easily approved 
by Darwin himself. But abuse and ridicule cannot hinder 
the admission that the conclusions (or speculations, if you 
will) of Cope and others-did lead to the discovery and 
scientific coordination of many undoubted facts, having 
much bearing on questions of descent. Moreover, many 
of Cope’s audacious hypotheses are now the common- 
places of evolutionists. It is nearly thirty years since his 
establishment of the doctrine that the development of 
new characters has been accomplished by an acceleration 
or retardation in the growth of the parts changed ; an 
idea expressed independently by later workers as the 
earlier or later inheritance of acquired characters 
(Caenogenesis, Haeckel). Thus, the adult of an ancestral 
individual is the exact parallel of a younger stage in its 
descendant—a limitation of, and yet-an advance on, Von 
Baer’s statement of inexact parallelism. Cope, too, was 
the first to point out that genera—as genera then were 
understood—were “homologous groups ” descended from 
other “homologous groups” ; as we now say, genera are 
polyphyletic. Retaining the old boundaries of a genus, 
he regarded it as a grade of evolution. Nowadays there 
are some who maintain such orders, families and genera, 
though fully appreciating their polyphyletic origin ; while 
others believe that a group of organisms once proved poly- 
phyletic can no longer be regarded as a unit of classifica- 
tion. These latter workers seek to classify organisms 
according to their true lines of descent, and they there- 
fore elevate as diagnostic other characters than those so 
regarded by their predecessors, characters as a rule less 
obtrusive and of less physiological importance. Whether 
the older view of Cope, powerfully expressed by Huxley 
in our own country, or this newer view ultimately prevail, 
the credit of first putting the problem is due to Cope. 
More Lamarckian than Lamarck, Cope rendered the 
“besoin” of the French philosopher by “ effort,” regard- 
ing animals as in some sort working out their own salva- 
tion. The definiteness of variation, in which he believed, 
and the definiteness of evolution, which all accept, he 
imagined to be due to the action of a “growth-force ” 
(“bathmism ”), thus approaching the views of Naegeli. 
This force acts, according to Cope, through a kind of 
unconscious memory, with which faculty the reproductive 
cells are endued. ‘Thus, as the result of his apparently 
mechanical conception of the details of evolution, he came 
at length, along a road that was all his own, to the con- 
clusion of many a philosopher: “that consciousness as 
well as life preceded organism, and has been the prvnum 
mobile in the creation of organic structure... that 
the true definition of life is, exergy directed by sensibility, 
or by a mechanism which has originated under the direc- 
tion of senstbility.” FA. B: 
NOTES 
Ir has been felt by many entomologists, for some time past, 
that several of our more interesting and local British insects are 
in danger of extermination from over-collecting. Accordingly, 
the Council of the Entomological Society of London appointed a 
representative Committee to consider the matter. The Com- 
mittee found themselves unable to recommend any means of 
affording protection by enactment, as has been done for birds, 
or even by approaching landowners to induce them to check col- 
lecting on property where such species occur. In many cases 
such insects are found on poor and uncultivated lands belonging 
to small proprietors, to whom the presence of an army of 
collectors is a source’ of profit. It was suggested, however, 
