2 PRINCIPLES OF PALEONTOLOGY. 



prehend the former, unless we possess some knowledge of the 

 latter. However great its physical advances may be, Geology 

 remains imperfect till it is wedded with Palaeontology,* a study 

 which essentially belongs to the vast complex of the Biologi- 

 cal Sciences, but at the same time has its strictly geological 

 side. Dealing, as it does, wholly with the consideration of 

 such living beings as do not belong exclusively to the present 

 order of things, Palaeontology is, in reality, a branch of Natu- 

 ral History, and may be regarded as substantially the Zoology 

 and Botany of the past. It is the ancient life-history of the 

 earth, as revealed to us by the labours of palaeontologists, 

 with which we have mainly to do here ; but before entering 

 upon this, there are some general questions, affecting Geology 

 and Palaeontology alike, which may be very briefly discussed. 



The working geologist, dealing in the main with purely phy- 

 sical problems, has for his object to determine the material 

 structure of the earth, and to investigate, as far as may be, the 

 long chain of causes of which that structure is the ultimate re- 

 sult. No wider or more extended field of inquiry could be 

 found ; but philosophical geology is not content with this. At 

 all the confines of his science, the transcendental geologist 

 finds himself confronted with some of the most stupendous 

 problems which have ever engaged the restless intellect of 

 humanity. The origin and primaeval constitution of the terres- 

 trial globe, the laws of geologic action through long ages of 

 vicissitude and development, the origin of life, the nature and 

 source of the myriad complexities of living beings, the advent 

 of man, possibly even the future history of the earth, are 

 amongst the questions with which the geologist has to grapple 

 in his higher capacity. 



These are problems which have occupied the attention of 

 philosophers in every age of the world, and in periods long 

 antecedent to the existence of a science of geology. The mere 

 existence of cosmogonies in the religion of almost every nation, 

 both ancient and modern, is a sufficient proof of the eager de- 

 sire of the human mind to know something of the origin of the 

 earth on which we tread. Every human being who has gazed 

 on the vast panorama of the universe, though it may have been 

 but with the eyes of a child, has felt the longing to solve, how- 

 ever imperfectly, " the riddle of the painful earth," and has, 

 consciously or unconsciously, elaborated some sort of a theory 

 as to the why and wherefore of what he sees. Apart from the 

 profound and perhaps inscrutable problems which lie at the 

 bottom of human existence, men have in all ages invented 

 * Gr. J>a/atos, ancient ; ofUa, beings ; /o^os, discourse. 



