May 7, 1897.] 



SGIENGE. 



717 



In this review no mention has been 

 made of Cope's several papers upon fossil 

 birds or of his extremely valuable contri- 

 butions to historical geology. 



We have at present few data for the his- 

 tory of his later life apart from that furnished 

 by his writings. His editorial connection with 

 the American Naturalist, begun in 1878, in as- 

 sociation with Professor A. S. Packard, who 

 retired a few years later, was continued for 

 twenty years, with a great sacrifice of time. 

 It afforded an outlet for his continuous 

 stream of shorter publications and for the 

 free expression of his very independent 

 opinions upon current scientific movements 

 and topics. This constant occupation kept 

 him from foreign travel; at the time of the 

 first Paris Exposition he made his second 

 and final journey abroad. He was a close 

 student but never a recluse. Extremely 

 fond of the society of thinking people, he 

 was also a very regular attendant upon the 

 learned societies of his city and country. 

 It is a cause for regret, and an instance of 

 the non-recognition of genius, that only at 

 a very late day the Society of Naturalists 

 and the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science elected him to their 

 chief oflBces. His retiring presidential ad- 

 dress was to have been made at the coming 

 meeting of the Association. 



The most conspicuous feature of Cope's 

 personal character from boyhood upwards 

 was his independence; this was partly the 

 secret of his venturesome and successful 

 assaults upon all traditional but defective 

 systems of classification. He was no re- 

 spector of authority per se. Even if some- 

 times mistaken his fearless criticism of men 

 and of institutions was chiefly animated by 

 high ideals, not by personal feeling, nor for 

 personal advantage. His open and aggres- 

 sive statements made him many opponents 

 and attracted to him many friends, because 

 whether right or wrong they always sprang 

 from conviction. Another marked charac- 



teristic was his fortitude. He bore material 

 reverses with stoical resignation, regretting 

 chiefly the limitations they placed upon his 

 explorations. He was full of cheer and deter- 

 mination when things looked most unpromis- 

 ing, allowing nothing to disturb the compo- 

 sure which is so essential to research. His 

 life in fact became a fine illustration of the 

 happiness attendant upon plain living and 

 high investigation which he foresaw at nine- 

 teen in his letter to his cousin quoted above. 



Cope is not to be thought of merely as a 

 specialist in paleontology. After Huxley he 

 was the last representative of the old broad- 

 gauge school of anatomists and he is only to 

 be compared with members of that school. 

 His life-work bears the marks of great 

 genius, of solid and accurate observation 

 and at times of inaccuracy due to bad logic 

 or haste and overpressure of work. The 

 greater number of his Natural Orders and 

 Natural Laws will remain as permanent 

 landmarks in our science. As a com- 

 parative anatomist he ranks both in the 

 range and effectiveness of his knowledge 

 and his ideas with Cuvier and Owen. When 

 we consider the short life of some of the 

 favorite generalizations of these great men 

 he may well prove to be their superior as a 

 philosophical anatomist. His work, while 

 inferior in style of presentation, has another 

 quality which distinguished that of Huxley — 

 namely, its clear and immediate perception 

 of the most essential or distinctive feature 

 in a group of animals. As a natural phil- 

 osopher, while far less logical than Huxley, 

 he was more creative and constructive, his 

 metaphysics ending in theism rather than 

 agnosticism. In mere mass of production 

 Cope's work was extraordinary. He leaves 

 twenty octavo and three great quarto vol- 

 umes of collected researches. By his un- 

 timely death a wide gap is left which can 

 never be filled by one man. 



Heney F. Osboen. 



Columbia Univeesity, May 3, 1897. 



