ON THE METHOD OF PAL/EONTOLOGY 439 



peculiarities of organization among the Ruminants, wliicli liave no 

 apparent physiological connexion, Cuvier says : — - 



" Cependant puisque ces rapports sont constans il faut bien qu'ils 

 aient une cause suffisante ; mais comme nous ne la connaissons pas, 

 nous devons supplier au defaut de la theorie par le moyen de 

 I'observation ; elle nous sert a etablir des lois empiriques qui devien- 

 nent presque aussi certaines que les lois rationelles, quand elles 

 reposent sur des observations assez repetees : en sorte qu'aujourdhui 

 quelqu'un qui vOit seulement la piste d'un pied fourchu, pent en 

 conclure que I'animal qui a laisse cette empreinte ruminait, et cette 

 conclusion est tout aussi certaine qu'aucune autre en physique ou en 

 morale." 



I confess, that, considering the Pig has a cloven foot, and does not 

 ruminate, the last assertion appears to me to be a little strong. But 

 my object is not to criticise Cuvier, but simply to show that nothing 

 could be more marked than his appreciation of the value of the merely 

 empirical laws of. morphology, as applied to paleontology, nothing 

 more erroneous than the popular notion, too much favoured by his 

 own language, that his method essentially consisted in reasoning from 

 supposed physiological necessities. In the lecture above referred to, 

 I not only . maintained this - view, but I further asserted, and en- 

 deavoured to prove, that not only are popular and other writers thus 

 mistaken in interpreting Cuvier, but that Cuvier himself was in error 

 in ascribing' to the laws of physiological correlation that primary 

 importance in palaeontology which he undoubtedly does give them. 

 I brought forward, in fact, the doctrine which I have argued at 

 greater length in the preceding pages, viz. that palaeontology, so 

 far as it consists in the restoration of extinct forms, is entirely based 

 upon deductions from the empirical laws of morphology ; that its 

 conclusions,., so far, would be as valid if the whole science of 

 physiology were non-extant, and if we knew nothing of final causes 

 or adaptations to purposes. 



The publication of the abstract of the lecture has elicited a 

 brusque attack from Dr. Falconer, which, coming as it did from 

 the pen of a palaeontologist of high repute, caused me at first, I 

 must confess, no slight alarm ; the more so as Dr. Falconer, in his 

 laudable desire at once to extinguish heresy, had, I found, taken the 

 somewhat unusual course of widely circulating his little pamphlet. 



The perusal of Dr. Falconer's essay, however, soon relieved me 

 from my only real source of uneasiness, by demonstrating very clearly 

 that Dr. Falconer had been far too much in a hurry either to master 

 the real question in dispute, to read what I had written with atten- 



