RISE OF PALEONTOLOGY 163 



1881, pp. 452-5. Sci. Mem., iv, xxix, p. 508. Coll. 

 Essays, iv, p. 24). This sketches the history of the 

 subject, and ends as follows : — 



" I have always had a certain horror of presuming to set a 

 limit upon the possibilities of things. Therefore I will not ven- 

 ture to say that it is impossible that the multitudinous species of 

 animals and plants may have been produced, one separately from 

 the other, by spontaneous generation ; nor that it is impossible 

 that they should have been independently originated by an end- 

 less succession of miraculous creative acts. But I must confess 

 that both these hypotheses strike me as so astoundingly improbable, 

 so devoid of a shred of either scientific or traditional support, 

 that even if there were no other evidence than that of paleontology 

 in its favour, I should feel compelled to adopt the hypothesis of 

 evolution. Happily, the future of palaeontology is independent 

 of all hypothetical considerations. Fifty years hence, whoever 

 undertakes to record the progress of palaeontology will note the 

 present time as the epoch in which the law of succession of the 

 forms of the higher animals was determined by the observation 

 of palseontological facts. He will point out that, just as Steno 

 and Cuvier were enabled from their knowledge of the empirical 

 laws of co-existence of the parts of animals to conclude from a 

 part to the whole, so the knowledge of the law of succession of 

 forms empowered their successors to conclude, from one or two 

 terms of such a succession, to the entire series ; and thus to divine 

 the existence of forms of life, of which, perhaps, no trace 

 remains, at epochs of inconceivable remoteness in the past." 



At the end of the year we unfortunately find a record 

 of bad health, but not enough to completely stop work, 

 nor amounting to a complete breakdown. 



1882. 



The deaths of Charles Darwin and Francis Maitland 

 Balfour in 1882, were both felt by Huxley as heavy 

 personal losses. The former event took place on 

 April 19, and a short notice by Huxley appeared in 



