58 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



shapely and beautiful, on a soil furnished with a plentiful supply of 

 excellent material for plastic art — from these simple facts should 

 we start before we attempt to understand those ways which char- 

 acterize what is loosely called his ' civilization,' " 



There is yet another way in which we may view the sum total of 

 facts resulting from paleontological inquiry, or even the small part of 

 it which is here brought together. We may seek to interpret our 

 collection of facts from the humanistic standpoint. Granted that 

 this knowledge does not appreciably affect our vital interests, what 

 is it worth to us in other respects? How far does knowledge of 

 this sort tend to enlarge human consciousness? Does reflection 

 upon it tend to vivify our perception of the workings of natural 

 law? And if so, does there not arise from fulness of perception a 

 keener sense of the nobility and dignity of the relation man bears 

 to the wonderful planet he inhabits, and is there not a quicker 

 response on his part to the suggestions which that clarified sense 

 awakens? There can be but one answer to this last question. It 

 is inevitable that there should be a prompt and vigorous response 

 from within when once it is realized that " whatever else rnan may 

 be, he is the sum of a series of actions linked with all that has gone 

 on before upon this earth." The experience is no less common in 

 paleontology than in other sciences that, after one has gained suffi- 

 cient insight, ideas and impressions of a certain sort enter our 

 minds, sharpen our vision, and enlarge our mental horizon by 

 elevating us to a summit of observation unattainable before. Pos- 

 sibly there belongs to paleontology an even larger quota of these 

 emancipating conceptions than is true of other sciences, in view of 

 its predominant historical interest — being, as it were, a limitless 

 extension of universal history. 



To realize to some extent what the loss of these emancipating 

 conceptions would mean to us, it is only necessary to contrast the 

 olden-time idea of creation with modern evolutionary beliefs. Or, 

 regarding the paleontological record as the continuous unfolding of 

 consciousness, whose beginnings are coeval with the origin of pro- 

 toplasm, and whose crowning resultant Is man, we may picture to 

 ourselves the contracted outlook, the void in our knowledge, and 

 the Impoverishment of ideas that would be our portion in case no 

 documents had been preserved to Instruct us of the far distant past. 

 Imagine our loss were the records of early human history obliter- 

 ated. What would be our poverty had the grandeur of Rome been 

 dissolved Into a mass of meaningless ruins, had the splendid story 

 of Greece and Athens been blotted out, had we remained uncon- 

 scious that Marathon was ever fought, or that such a one as Socrates 

 had ever lived ; had we no line from Homer, no thought from Plato, 

 no Inspired word from Palestine vibrating through the ages ! 



Again let it be said that conceptions of this nature are not foreign 

 to the scope or peculiar province of paleontology. They are, In fact, 

 Inherent In all science ; they are not mixed with It, but combined with 

 it, and hence do not properly form either Its distillate or residuum. 

 If there be any who question how far these ideas are relevant to the 



