compelled to adopt the hypothesis of evolution. Happily, the
future of palaeontology is independent of all hypothetical
considerations. Fifty years hence, whoever undertakes to record
the progress of palaeontology will note the present time as the
epoch in which the law of succession of the forms of the higher
animals was determined by the observation of palaeontological
facts. He will point out that, just as Steno and as Cuvier were
enabled from their knowledge of the empirical laws of co-
existence of the parts of animals to conclude from a part to the
whole, so the knowledge of the law of succession of forms
empowered their successors to conclude, from one or two terms of
such a succession, to the whole series; and thus to divine the
existence of forms of life, of which, perhaps, no trace remains,
at epochs of inconceivable remoteness in the past.


FOOTNOTES

(1) De Solidoiintra Solidum, p.5--"Dato corpore certa
figura praedito et juxta leges naturae producto, in ipso corpore
argumenta invenire locum et modum productionis detegentia."
(2) "Corpora sibi invicem omnino similia simili etiam modo
producta sunt."
(3) Sir J. D. Hooker.