94 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. III. 
palaeontology. ... His statements on the suc- 
cession of genera and species, and their possible 
derivation one from another, were always vague, 
and capable of more than one interpretation ; and 
though there is not much doubt he leaned to- 
wards the views of Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, and 
those who believed in the evolution of life, his 
work, for the most part, is eminently Cuvierian — - 
a laborious description of the facts, with a detailed 
discussion that rarely extends beyond strict com- 
parative anatomy and the phenomena of geo- 
graphical or geological distribution. Only on two 
occasions ® does he appear to have attempted any 
broad philosophical deductions, and, even in those 
cases, it is not quite clear how much he admits. 
He was perfectly well aware that the facts of pro- 
gression noticed by the anti-evolutionist Agassiz 
among fishes were equally conspicuous among the 
higher vertebrates ; ^ but he contented himself 
with the bare statement that “ the inductive de- 
monstration of the nature and mode of operation ” 
of the laws governing life would “ henceforth be 
the great aim of the philosophical naturalist.” ’ 
Professor St. George Mivart speaks of Owen’s 
position in these terms. Writing in the same 
journal (January 1893), he says: ‘ Owen . . • 
® References to horse in xl. p. 157 (1884). 
Anat. and Physiol. Vert., vol. iii. 1 Palceontology, ed. 2, p. 444 
p. 791 (1868), and to crocodiles (1861). 
in Quart. Jom. Geol. Soc., vol. 
