THE 



AMERICAN NATURALIST 



Vol. XLIX April, 1915 No. 580 



ORIGIN OF SINGLE CHARACTERS AS OBSERVED 

 IN FOSSIL AND LIVING ANIMALS 

 AND PLANTS 1 



HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN 

 Columbia University 

 American Museum of Natural History 

 Ix the last thirty years two biologies have been develop- 

 ing. The first is the biology of the garden, the seed pan, 

 the incubator, and the breeding pen. The second is the biol- 

 ogy of the field zoologist, of the field botanist, of the pale- 

 ontologist. Inasmuch as one regards unnatural processes 

 and the other regards natural processes it is small wonder 

 that these biologies have become as far apart as two re- 

 ligions and have developed their sects and their dog- 

 matists. Yet the actual facts assembled in these two 

 biologies as distinguished From the opinions based there- 

 upon can not be in the least discordant, for certainly 

 there is only one system of law operating in the living 

 world and there can be only one ultimate and final biology. 

 In my Harvey lecture of 1912 2 the search for some unity 

 between the observations in these two great fields of 

 natural and experimental research met with some failure 



1 Presidential address before The Paleontological Society of America, 

 delivered in the Ai-adeiin of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Wednesday, 

 December 31, 1914. 



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