AvausT 13, 1897.] 
tions on the rank that may be assigned to 
Cope in the world of science. 
Among those that have cultivated the 
same branches of science that he did—the 
study of the recent as well as the extinct 
Vertebrates—three naturalists have ac- 
quired unusual celebrity. Those are Cuvier, 
Owen and Huxley. 
Cuvier excelled all of his timein the ex- 
tent of his knowledge of the anatomical 
structure of animals and appreciation of 
morphological details, and first systemat- 
ically applied them to and combined them 
with the remains of extinct Vertebrates, 
especially the mammals and reptiles. He 
was the real founder of Vertebrate paleon- 
tology. 
Owen, a disciple of Cuvier, followed in 
his footsteps, and, with not unequal skill 
in reconstruction and with command of am- 
pler materials, built largely on the structure 
that Cuvier had begun. 
Huxley covered as wide a field as Cuvier 
and Owen, and likewise combined knowl- 
edge of the details of structure of the recent 
forms with acquaintance with the ancient 
ones. His actual investigations were, how- 
ever, less in amount than those of either of 
his predecessors. He excelled in logical and 
forcible presentation of facts. 
Cope covered a field as extensive as any 
of the three. His knowledge of structural 
details of all the classes of Vertebrates was 
probably more symmetrical than that of 
any of those with whom he is compared ; 
his command of material was greater than 
that of any of the others; his industry was 
equal to Owen’s; in the clearness of his 
conceptions he was equalled by Huxley 
alone; in the skill with which he weighed 
discovered facts, in the aptuness of his pres- 
entation of those facts, and in the lucid 
methods by which the labor of the student 
was saved and the conception of the nu- 
merous propositions facilitated he was un- 
equalled. His logical ability may have 
SCIENCE. 
243 
been less than that of Huxley and possibly 
of Cuvier. He has been much blamed on 
account of the constant changes of his 
views and because he was inconsistent. 
Unquestionably he did change his views 
very often. Doubtlesssome of those changes 
were necessitated by too great haste in 
formulation and too great rashness in pub- 
lication. The freedom to change which he 
exercised, and which was exercised too 
little by at least one of his predecessors, 
was an offset to his rashness. He exercised 
a proper scientific spirit in refusing to be 
always consistent at the expense of truth. 
His reputation at present is much inferior, — 
at least among the people at large, to those 
of the men with whom he has been com- 
pared. Immediate reputation depends on 
various circumstances, some of which are 
quite adventitious, and it is often long be- 
fore men find their true levels. It is 
scarcely premature to prophesy that Cope’s 
reputation will grow and that in the future 
history of science his place will be at least 
as large as that of any of his predecessors. 
TuHEo. GILL. 
WASHINGTON. 
EXPERT TESTIMONY.* 
Iv will be remembered that a would-be 
facetious barrister once remarked that pre- 
varicators might be properly arranged in 
an ascending series, to wit: ordinary fib- 
bers, liars and experts; an arrangement 
which I fear meets with the approval of 
many members of the bench and bar to- 
day. The cause for such harsh classifica- 
tion is not so very far to seek. Itis based 
upon ignorance on the part of the bar, and 
at times upon what is worse than ignorance 
on the side of the ‘expert.’ With the 
culpable acts of the pseudo scientist we 
cannot waste our time. That he merits 
* Address of the Vice-President and Chairman of 
Section C (Chemistry) at the Detroit meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
