THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



Art. LI. — On Variations and Mutations; by 

 W. B. Scott. 



Very interesting and instructive analogies exist between the 

 history, aims and methods of comparative philology, on the 

 one hand and those of animal morphology, on the other. In 

 both sciences the attempt is made to trace the development of 

 the modern from the ancient, to demonstrate the common 

 origin of things now widely separated and differing in all 

 apparent characteristics and to establish the modes in which 

 and the factors or causes by which this evolution and differen- 

 tiation have been effected. At the present time morphology 

 is still far behind the science of language with regard to the 

 solution of many of these kindred problems and can hardly 

 be said to have advanced beyond the stage which called forth 

 Voltaire's famous sneer : " L'etymologie est une science ou. 

 les voyelles ne font rien, et les consonnes fort peu de chose." 

 Of the animal pedigrees, now so frequently propounded, few 

 have any better foundation than the " guessing etymologies" 

 of the last century and for exactly the same reason. Just as 

 the old etymologists had no test to distinguish a true deriva- 

 tion from a false one, except a likeness in sound and meaning 

 in the words compared, so the modern morphologist is yet 

 without any sure test of the relationships of animals except 

 certain likenesses or unlikenesses of structure. How much 

 weight is to be allowed a given similarity and how far this is 

 offset by a dissimilarity which accompanies it, we have, as yet, 

 few means of determining and have still to discover those 

 laws of organic change which shall render the same service to 

 morphology as Grimm's law has done to the study of the 



Am. Joxjb. Sci.— Third Series, Vol. XLYIII, No. 287 — Nov., 1894. 

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