C— GEOLOGY 59 



had been wasted in ' empty speculation ' (as Scilla described the efforts of 

 his contemporaries) before philosophers learned the value of physical 

 labour, with its accompaniment of honest dirt, as a clarifier of the mind. 



And so we come to the heroic period of the late eighteenth and early 

 nineteenth centuries, when students of Geognosy began to collect fossils 

 for themselves. Immediately two sciences sprang to birth. Geology, 

 as we understand it to-day, found in fossils the link that gave continuity 

 to a mass of disconnected observations ; and Palaeontology took its place 

 as the science of the succession of life. The discovery that ' Strata [can 

 be] identified by Organised Fossils ' must surely rank among the greatest 

 episodes in the history of human thought ; for to it we can trace directly 

 our conception of geological time and our realisation of the fact of 

 evolution. Throughout the past century both of these revelations were 

 hotly contested ; for since the days of Elijah truth has always been at 

 variance with orthodoxy ; but a recognition of the orderly succession of 

 events in the history of the world, inorganic and organic alike, gradually 

 dawned on all but the most benighted minds. To-day we can, with such 

 concessions to modern delicacy as may be appropriate, apply the dictum 

 of Breynius to those who doubt, and especially to those who deny, the 

 established facts of history. 



Since I propose to exploit to the full a Presidential licence for generalisa- 

 tion, it becomes necessary to remind myself and you of the value of the 

 evidence on which the generalisations are based. The depth and range 

 of the conceptions of which Palaeontology treats, and the importance of 

 the conclusions to which they lead, are such that a critical audit is period- 

 ically imperative. Evolution is a principle that interests and influences 

 every man, whether he likes it or not ; and for that reason it is in constant 

 danger of becoming discredited by wild generalisations. Every teacher 

 knows the absorbent nature of the student-mind which willingly accepts 

 as doctrine suggestions that were not meant to be the commandments even 

 of men. We spend our lives in disproving the axioms of our youth. I 

 is, then, most important that palaeontologists, who alone can speak with 

 authority on the course of organic evolution, should be careful of what 

 they say. Heaven forfend that they should ever cease to theorise and 

 speculate ; but they will do so better if they remember occasionally the 

 nature of the foundation on which the apex of their logical pyramid rests. 



In any kind of historical research there must always be a vast quantity 

 of undiscovered, and indeed unrecorded, facts. Many of these lost data 

 are doubtless best served by oblivion {vide the daily Press) ; but, in the 

 intricate ramification of affairs, apparently trivial incidents may prove 

 critically important. Nevertheless, a few average samples of news, 

 selected on a definite principle, will give a fairer picture of historical truth 

 than a welter of flashy details that are ' news ' because they are abnormal. 



The imperfection of the geological record is patent and inevitable, for 

 all stratigraphical history is written in palimpsest. The palaeontological 

 record is inseparably involved in the geological ; so that disjointed scraps 

 of evidence are all that we can expect. Even when no obvious mutilation, 



