106 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 30. 



which have sharp canines for the laost part lack 

 horns. 



"However, since these relations are constant, 

 they must have some sufficient cause; but since Tve 

 are ignorant of it, vre must make good the defect of 

 the theory by means of observation ; it enables us to 

 establish empirical laws, which become almost as cer- 

 tain as rational laws, when they rest on sufficiently 

 repeated observations ; so that now, whoso sees 

 merely the print of a cleft foot may conclude that the 

 animal which left this impression ruminated, and 

 this conclusion is as certain as any other in physics or 

 morals. This footprint alone, then, yields to him 

 who observes it, the form of the teeth, the form of 

 the jaws, the form of the vertebrte, the form of all the 

 bones of the legs, of the thighs, of the shoulders, and 

 of the pelvis' of the animal which has passed by; it 

 is a surer mark than all those of Zadig. ' ' 



The first perusal of these remarks would 

 occasion surprise to some and immediately 

 induce a second, more careful reading to 

 ascertain whether they had not been mis- 

 understood. Men of much inferior capaeitj^ 

 than Cuvier or Huxlej', like myself, must 

 have at once recalled living exceptions to 

 the positive statements as to the coordina- 

 tion of the ' foot cleft ' with the other char- 

 acters specified. One of the most common 

 of domesticated animals — the hog — would 

 come up before the ' mind's eye,' if not the 

 actual eye at the moment, to refute any 

 such correlation as was claimed. Never- 

 theless, notwithstanding the fierce contro- 

 versial literature centered on Huxley, I have 

 never seen an allusion to the lapse. And 

 yet every one will admit that the hog has the 

 ' foot cleft ' as much as any ruminant, but 

 the ' form of the teeth,' and the form of some 

 vertebrae are quite different from those of 

 the ruminants, and of course the multiple 

 stomach and adaptation for rumination do 

 not exist in the hog. That any one mammal- 

 ogist shovtld make such a slip is not veiy 

 surprising, but that a second equallj^ learned 

 should follow in his steps is a singular psj'- 

 chological curiosity. To make the case 

 clearer to those unacquainted with mam- 

 mals, I may add that because the feet are cleft 

 in the same manner in the hogs as in the 



ruminants, both groups have long been as- 

 sociated in the same order under the name 

 of Paridigitates or Artiodactjdes, contrast- 

 ing with another (comprising the tapirs, 

 rhinocerotids and horses) called Impari- 

 digitates or Perissodactj'les. 



I need scarcely add that the law of cor- 

 relation apjjlied by Cuvier to the structures 

 of i-uminants entirely fails in the case of 

 many extinct mammals discovered, since 

 Cuvier's days. Zadig would have been com- 

 pletelj' nonplussed if he could have seen the 

 imprint of an Agriochoerid, a Unitatheriid 

 or a Menodontid. 



Another instance of failure of observation 

 or memorj' nearly equallj^ remai-kable was 

 published several years ago in various daily 

 papers, and the following extract from one 

 of them is given : 



"foue intelligekt pkoof-eeadees. 



"The question whether a proof-reader must have 

 knowledge of the contents of anj' article that passes 

 through his hands having been discussed in a German 

 paper, the Frankfmier Zeitung, brings the following 

 amusing contribution from Prof. Karl Vogt, the cele- 

 brated scientist, in illustration of this problem. 



' ' When Edward Desor and myself were working 

 with Agassiz at Neuenburg [Neuchatel] my friend 

 Desor was charged with describing certain fossil fish 

 after the latter's notes. Desor used to dictate these 

 descriptions to a young man who pretended to know 

 all about it, while Desor counselled him to consider 

 himself merely an unconscious tool. To sound the 

 knowledge of his clerk, my colleague one day, under 

 my connivance, dictated to his secretarj- the most ab- 

 surd nonsense b.y interlacing the description of some 

 fossil lish with the particular statement. ' This re- 

 markable specimen differs from all others in the ab- 

 normal fact of having its head in the same spot where 

 the others' tails are found.' The clerk took every- 

 thing down as it came from the lips of my collabor- 

 ator mthout rebelling. Desor, accidentally being 

 called away, forgot his ti'ick, and the manuscript 

 went to the printing office. The proof was read by 

 Dr. G., who had expressly been appointed to the post 

 by Agassiz, and besides entrusted with the corapila- 

 ation of his ' Nomenclator. ' Desor and myself read 

 the second proofs ; so did Agassiz, who placed his im- 

 primatur upon them, but none of us four took notice 

 of the nonsense it contained. The whole was printed, 

 and only then, when the series was aljout to be sent 



