44° ON THE METHOD OF PALEONTOLOGY 



tion, or to quote me with common accuracy and fairness. In fact, I 

 have not the good fortune to be among the " tantis viris " de quibus 

 " modeste tamen et circumspecto judicio pronuntiandum est," and 

 it is clearly in Dr. Falconer's opinion not worth while to use much 

 circumspection in dealing with the opinions of mere ordinary " viri." 



The first evidence of Dr. Falconer's entire misconception of the 

 point at issue meets one in the title-page — " On Prof Huxley's 

 attempted refutation of Cuvier's Laws of Correlation in the recon- 

 struction of extinct Vertebrate Forms." It is repeated at page 477. 

 " Nearly three-fourths of Mr. Huxley's abstract are devoted to the 

 first head, viz.. Natural History, regarded as knowledge, the leading 

 feature of which is an attempt to refute the principle propounded by 

 Cuvier, that the laws of correlation which preside over the organiza- 

 tion of animals, guided him in his reconstruction of extinct Forms." 

 Nothing can be more entirely incorrect than the assertion contained 

 in the latter part of this paragraph. I did not attempt to refute any 

 one of Cuvier's laws of correlation. There is not a passage in my 

 lecture which can be justly so interpreted. I merely endeavoured to 

 prove, and I can find nothing in Dr. Falconer's essay to show that I 

 did not prove, first, that the physiological laws of correlation which 

 Cuvier laid down are not as universally and necessarily applicable as 

 he seems to have imagined ; secondly, that his physiological laws of 

 correlation are of wholly subordinate importance in palaeontology, if 

 not absolutely unimportant, the really important laws by which he 

 worked being those morphological laws, those empirical laws of 

 coexistence which, as I have said, no man lays down more clearly, but 

 to which he nevertheless ascribes in words, though not in practice, a 

 subordinate place. This entire misunderstanding of the real point 

 under discussion vitiates the whole of Dr. Falconer's paper. It is 

 again repeated at p. 481, just after Dr. Falconer has gravely warned 

 us how necessary are " precision of thought and expression in 

 disquisitions of this kind." 



So again, at p. 487, Dr. Falconer says : — 



" The argument drawn by Mr. Huxley from instances of empirical 

 relation in the vegetable kingdom against there being necessary or 

 reciprocal relation in the high classes of the animal kingdom is 

 exactly of this character." 



I assert that no one who carefully reads my abstract will find the 

 slightest ground for the assertion that I have ever made use of any 

 such argument as that imputed to me by Dr. Falconer. What I say 

 in regard to plants is : — 



" And if we turn to the botanist and inquire how he restores fossil 



