68 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIEir. 



the concentration of the labours of a special class of investigators, 

 I feel sure that no one will misinterpret my meaning as to the 

 qualifications required by the students of fossil forms. Far from 

 suggesting that the palaeontologist may be one destitute of a proper 

 biological training, or that he may be satisfied with an equipment 

 of knowledge which would be insufficient for a systematic zoologist 

 or botanist, I would maintain that no one has a right to take up the 

 study and description of any fossil group until he has made a very 

 careful and exhaustive study of its nearest living allies ; but, in 

 addition to this, he ought to have made himself acquainted with the 

 peculiar mineral changes which organic remains are liable to undergo. 

 He wiU, moreover, be far more likely to interpret aright and to 

 make the best use of the materials that come to his hand if he 

 have at least a general knowledge of what others working on similar 

 materials belonging to other departments of the animal or vegetable 

 world have been able to accomplish, and of the methods which they 

 have followed. Such palaeontologists, I insist, have as much right 

 to recognition as any other class of biological specialists. 



Still less should I wish it to be implied that I think systematic 

 biologists can afford to be ignorant of the results of palaeontologieal 

 studies, in their own particular fields of labour. One of the most 

 mischievous weeds that have accompanied the evolutionist in his 

 incursions into various parts of the biological field is the prepos- 

 terous " genealogical tree." We can scarcely turn over the leaves 

 of a modern systematic work without finding it flourishing in full 

 luxuriance. jS'o sooner has the student of a particular group 

 arranged his families, genera, and species, than he thinks it incum- 

 bent upon him to show their genetic relations. Very admirably has 

 Professor Alexander Agassiz pointed out the utter fatuity of such a 

 proceeding. As Lyell used to say, in speaking of such proceedings, 

 the imagination of the systematist, untramelled by an acquaintance 

 with the past history of the group, " revels with aU. the freedom 

 characteristic of motion in vacuo." If for no other reason, zoologists 

 and botanists ought to study fossil forms in order that, by encounter- 

 ing a few hard facts in the shape of fossils, they may be saved 

 from these unprofitable flights of the imagination. 



In the remarks which I have hitherto made I have confined my- 

 self to the purely Biological aspects of Palaeontology. Palaeon- 

 tology has relations with Biology, similar to those of Astronomy to 

 Physics ; for as Astronomy exhibits to us the orderly working of 



