Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/357

Rh of learning there were fantastic and grotesque misconceptions. The idea of the resurrection bone was one of these—the belief that in the body there was an indestructible bone that formed the nucleus of the resurrection body. This view was demonstrated to be untenable by Vesalius, the reformer of anatomy in the sixteenth century and the forerunner of the morphologists of zoology. Other points about the structure of man and animals, equally fantastic, were upheld, and against one who ventured to disbelieve in them the cry of heretic was raised. We may at first sight think that crude misunderstandings are harmless vagaries, but when viewed as to their consequences we see that this class of superstitions has led to intolerance and persecutions. As illustrations there come to mind the horrors of the inquisition, the cruel and harmful ideas of witchcraft, the brutal and wicked persecution of men and women for holding saner views than the majority of mankind of the part played by the Almighty in his universe. It is one of the blessings of progress that mankind has been relatively freed from persecutions of this nature. These grotesque beliefs and superstitions were dispelled by advances in the knowledge of the organization of animals. Wherever investigation in this territory prospered, it shed light and dispelled error.

From one point of view the fossil remains of extinct animals belong to the sphere of the zoologist, for the fossil animals were the ancestors of the living ones. It was two zoologists, Cuvier and Lamarck, that founded the science of paleontology, one that of the vertebrate series, and the other that of the invertebrate. When fossil bones were first unearthed they excited stupid wonder and amazement, and the most fantastic theories were proposed to account for them. They were regarded as bones of giants, as remains deposited by the deluge, etc., but finally were accepted as the remains of former races of animals and were turned to account as supplying an index to the past history of the earth. The constantly increasing collections of fossil remains of animals are enabling us to understand something of the momentous changes that have passed over the succession of animal forms that have lived upon the globe. The accounts of the discoveries of prehuman remains, connecting by gradations with races now living, are extending into remote periods our conception of the antiquity of man. These matters arouse interest and discussion, and the sweep of all these discoveries brings with it a widening of the horizon of human understanding. The historical relations of fossils have been established by a great number of talented observers. Without any disparagement to other men who have done notable work in this field, I mention but one, Henry F. Osborn, of New York, who is one of our most distinguished American zoologists. With the enormous collections at his disposal he has devoted himself with marked success to making out the relations of