DEVONIAN FISHES OF IOWA 



I. 



Aim and general outlook of palaeontological inquiry, and 

 relations of palaeichthyology to biology 



"Die Weisheit ist nur in der Wahrheit." — Goethe. 



SCIENCE is knowledge. It is knowledge coordinated, ar- 

 ranged and systematized. To ascertain and communicate knowl- 

 edge is the primary object of science. Its mission is the quest 

 after Truth, the discovery of the facts of actuality, of the invari- 

 able laws operating in the universe ; and finally the dissemination 

 of this knowledge among men. The work of a true man of 

 science, in the words of a great astronomer of our day, is "a 

 perpetual striving after a better and closer knowledge of the 

 planet on which his lot is cast, and of the universe in the vastness 

 of which that planet is lost." Imperfect, painfully imperfect as 

 may be our present knowledge, its gradual extension quickens 

 our life into a higher consciousness. Progressive understanding 

 has also these advantages : it draws us out of and above our 

 instincts and purely personal interests; it enables the intellect 

 to project itself in a certain measure beyond our humanity, and 

 to consider it from the exterior ; it stirs within us that spiritual 

 discernment which led Francis Bacon to exclaim: "Truth, which 

 only doth judge itself, teacheth that the enquiry of truth is the 

 sovereign good of human nature. ' ' And likewise Boileau : "Rien 

 n'est beau que le vrai, le vrai seul est aimable." 



What is true of science in general is true of any one of its 

 subordinate members in particular. Palaeontology is sometimes 

 considered as an independent branch of inquiry, but this is to 

 misconceive its relations to kindred sciences. For that reason it 

 may be profitable, before passing to our special subject of fossil 



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