PREFACE. XV11 



is an historical fact (?), why should the attempt to 

 reconstruct the details of that momentous history be 

 regarded as less philosophical or less laudable than 

 the attempt of a Niebuhr or a Mommsen to build up, 

 from ruined monuments, fragmentary inscriptions, 

 and obscure and often contradictory texts, a con- 

 nected and intelligible history of Rome ? ' As to 

 attempts like those of Niebuhr and Mommsen here 

 referred to, they belong, it need scarcely be observed, 

 to a category altogether different from that to which 

 we must relegate the attempts of Evolutionists to 

 reconstruct the details of their ' momentous history ' 

 of the origin of all living forms. Niebuhr and 

 Mommsen's building up of a connected and in- 

 telligible history of Rome has a parallel in Cuvier's 

 reconstruction of the anatomical and physiological 

 history of an extinct animal from the study of its 

 fossil remains ; but no parallel in any reconstruction 

 of an ideal history founded on assumption, such as 

 that which Mr. Huxley advocates. Here let it be 

 particularly understood, that by these words I of 

 course impugn the palpable facts of paleontology 

 which Evolutionists mix up with their history as 

 little as Niebuhr questioned the facts interwoven 

 with the myths in the old poetical legends of the 

 country. 



Historical and ordinary anatomico-physiological 



a 



