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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 85. 



magnify one's own office is a very human 

 infirmity, but it involves a minimizing of 

 the offices of others. Science is not ad- 

 vanced by the sneers of its representatives at 

 one another as mere 'species-makers,' or 

 ' section- cutters,' or * closet-naturalists,' as 

 the case may be. One is prone to regard 

 with instinctive distrust results which run 

 counter to cherished convictions, or which 

 ill harmonize with prevalent theories and 

 call for a radical readjustment of opinion. 

 Naturally the investigator is apt to place 

 undue reliance upon the methods with 

 which he is familiar and to undervalue 

 other ways of attacking the same problem. 

 Evidence derived from other lines of inves- 

 tigation means less to him and is the more 

 readily overlooked and ignored. Perhaps 

 the greatest danger which at present 

 threatens the healthy growth of zoological 

 science in all its branches is the ever-in- 

 creasing tendency to ambitious speculation, 

 founded upon the narrowest basis of fact. 

 So much of a theoretical taint attaches to 

 nearly all morphological work as to cause 

 hesitation in fully accepting it, and one 

 often feels in reading that we have gone 

 back to the days of the transcendental 

 anatomists. The glib use of phrases and 

 formulae, which hide ignorance under the 

 guise of 'explanations' which do not explain, 

 is an outgrowth of the same tendency. It is 

 the fashion to measure with elastic stand- 

 ards, which expand and contract to meet 

 the needs of each case. Dogmatism and 

 narrow-mindedness have ever been closely 

 akin. 



The obvious corrective for many of these 

 evils is to take a wider view of our subject, 

 and for each of us to learn something of the 

 methods and results of workers in other 

 fields than our own. I wish to invite your 

 attention to a branch of morphology, the 

 bearings of which are much misapprehended 

 by the representatives of other departments 

 of the same science, and which, where not 



completely ignored, is often wofuUy abused, 

 namely, the subject of paleontology. This 

 science has too long been abandoned to the 

 geologist, but morphologists are coming to 

 see that they have an interest in it, and 

 sometimes condescend to make use of such 

 parts of its data as favor their opinions. 

 Even yet, however, the necessary and close 

 connection which obtains between paleontol- 

 ogy and geology leads many to the assump- 

 tion that its relation to morphology is, at 

 best, very remote ; but this assumption is 

 quite unjustified, and proceeds from a con- 

 founding of the two quite distinct aspects 

 and offices of paleontology. One of these 

 offices is to determine the chronological suc- 

 cession of the rocks, and in this mor- 

 phology is very indirectly concerned ; but 

 the other office is the study of fossils as 

 organisms, and here Huxley's dictum 

 thoroughly applies: "The only difference be- 

 tween a collection of fossils and one of re- 

 cent animals is that one set has been dead 

 somewhat longer than the other." This is 

 a shining example of the ' true word spoken 

 in jest.' 



The great problems of morphology are the 

 same for all workers in that science : it is 

 the method of attacking them which differs. 

 If I may be allowed to quote what I have 

 elsewhere said, I would again call attention 

 to the very instructive character of the 

 analogies which exist between the history, 

 aims and methods of animal morphology 

 and those of comparative philology. " In 

 both sciences the attempt is made to trace 

 the development of the modern from the 

 ancient, to demonstrate the common origin 

 of things now widely separated and differ- 

 ing in all apparent characteristics, and to 

 establish the modes in which, and the fac- 

 tors or causes by which, this evolution and 

 differentiation have been affected. At the 

 present time morphology is still far behind 

 the science of language with regard to the 

 solution of many of these kindred problems, 



