1897.] A Chapter in the History of Science. 849 
Cuvier, the more servile of whose imitators are fond of citing his mis- 
taken doctrines as to the nature of the methods of paleontology against 
the conclusions of logic and of common sense, has put this so strongly 
that I cannot refrain from quoting his words. 
“ But I doubt if any one would have divined, if untaught by observation, 
that all ruminants have the foot cleft, and that they alone have it. I 
doubt if any one would have divined that there are frontal horns only in 
this class; that those among them which have sharp canines for the most 
part lack horns. 
However, since these relations are constant, they must have some suf- 
ficient cause; bnt since we are ignorant of it, we must make good the 
defect of the theory by means of observation. It enables us to establish 
empirical laws, which become almost as certain as rational laws, when 
they rest on sufficiently repeated observations ; so that now, whgso sees 
merely the print of a cleft foot may conclude that the animal which left 
this impression ruminated, and this conclusion is as certain as any other 
in physics or morals. This footprint alone, then, yields to him who ob- 
serves it, the form of the teeth, the form of the jaws, the form of the 
vertebrae, the form of all the bones of the legs, of the thighs, of the 
shoulders, and of the pelvis of the animal which has passed by. It is a 
surer mark than all those of Zadig.” 
The first perusal of these remarks would occasion surprise 
to some and immediately induce a second, more careful read- 
ing to ascertain whether they had not been misunderstood. 
Some men, with much less knowledge than either Cuvier or 
Huxley, may at once recall living exceptions to the positive 
Statements as to the coordination of the “ foot cleft” with the 
other characters specified. One of the most common of domes- 
ticated animals—the hog—would come up before the “ mind’s 
eye,” if not the actual eye at the moment, to refute any such 
correlation as was claimed. Nevertheless, notwithstanding 
the fierce controversial literature centered on Huxley, no allu- 
sion appears to have been made to the lapsus. Yet every one 
will admit that the hog has the “foot cleft” as much as any 
ruminant, but the “form of the teeth ” and the form of some 
vertebree are quite different from those of the ruminants, and, 
of course, the multiple stomach and adaptation for rumination 
do not exist in the hog. That any one mammalogist should 
make such a slip is not very surprising, but that a second 
-® Ossemens fossiles, ed. 4°, tome, 1", p. 184. 
