Notes

Abstract

As we announced some months ago (Dec, 24, vol. xi. p. 153), Prof. Huxley is to undertake the duties of Prof. Wyville Thomson's chair of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh during the present summer session. Prof. Huxley gave his introductory lecture on Monday afternoon to a large audience. He was accompanied by Principal Sir Alexander Grant, Principal Tulloch, St. Andrews, and the members of the Senatus, and was enthusiastically received. He expressed at the outset a hope that at this time next year Prof. Thomson would be among them again, full of health and vigour, laden with the spoils of the many climes through which he had travelled, and a sort of zoological Ulysses, full of wisdom for their benefit. He then took a general view of his subject, put before the class the considerations which resulted from the careful study of a single animal, the Crocodile; an animal which was worthy of attentive study, as it might be said that a knowledge of its organisation was the key to the understanding of a vast number of extinct reptiles, and the key to the organisation of birds; while it helped them to connect the higher with the lower forms of vertebrate life, and was, in part at any rate, the key to the history of past life upon the globe. There might be asked respecting this animal, as respecting every other living thing—first, what was its structure? second, what did it do? third, where was it found? and fourth, in virtue of what chain of causation had this thing come into being?—this last having only been recently recognised as one of those questions which might legitimately be put. He then proceeded to describe the organisation of the Crocodile—its morphology, physiology, and distribution; and remarked that there were few animals about the palæontological history of which they knew so much, as they could carry back its history through the tertiary and secondary epochs. The answer to the last question constituted Ætiology, or the science of the causes of the phenomena of morphology, physiology, and distribution. Here, as in all cases where they had to deal with causation, they left the region of objective fact and entered that of speculation. With their present imperfect knowledge, the only safe thing they could do in attempting to form even a conception of the cause of this extraordinary complex phenomenon was what a wise historian would do—stick by archæological facts. He pointed out that palæontological facts showed that there had been a succession of forms of that animal to the present day, the oldest being something like the Lizard.