Charles Schuchert— Historical Geology, 1818-1918. 103 



paleontology as extensively as any other department of science 

 . . . In the [previous period] species were represented inde- 

 pendently by parallel lines; in the present period, they are 

 indicated by dependent, branching lines. The former was the 

 analytic, the latter is the synthetic period." 



Synthetic Period. — What is to be the next trend in 

 paleontology? Clearly it is to be the Synthetic period, 

 one that Marsh in 1879 indicated in these words : ' * But 

 if we are permitted to continue in imagination the rap- 

 idly converging lines of research pursued to-day, they 

 seem to meet at the point where organic and inorganic 

 nature become one. That this point will yet be reached, 

 I cannot doubt. ' ' 



This Synthetic period, foreshadowed also in Herbert 

 Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy, has not yet arrived, but 

 before long another great leader will appear. We have 

 the prophecy of his coming in such books as The Fitness 

 of the Environment, by Lawrence J. Henderson, 1913 ; 

 The Origin and Nature of Life, by Benjamin Moore, 

 1913; The Organism as a Whole, by Jacques Loeb, 1916; 

 and The Origin and Evolution of Life, bv Henry F. 

 Osborn, 1917. 



In all nature, inorganic and organic, there is continuity 

 and consistency, beauty and design. We are beginning 

 to see that there are eternal laws, ever interacting and 

 resulting in progressive and regressive evolutions. The 

 realization of these scientific revelations kindles in us a 

 desire for more knowledge, and the grandest revelations 

 are yet before us in the synthesis of the sciences. 



