"
In the "Ossemens Fossiles" Cuvier leaves his paper just as it
first appeared in the "Annales du Museum," as "a curious
monument of the force of zoological laws and of the use which
may be made of them."
Zoological laws truly, but not physiological laws. If one sees a
live dog's head, it is extremely probable that a dog's tail is
not far off, though nobody can say why that sort of head and
that sort of tail go together; what physiological connection
there is between the two. So, in the case of the Montmartre
fossil, Cuvier, finding a thorough opossum's head, concluded
that the pelvis also would be like an opossum's. But, most
assuredly, the most advanced physiologist of the present day
could throw no light on the question why these are associated,
nor could pretend to affirm that the existence of the one is
necessarily connected with that of the other. In fact, had it so
happened that the pelvis of the fossil had been originally
exposed, while the head lay hidden, the presence of the
"marsupial bones," though very like an opossum's, would by no
means have warranted the prediction that the skull would turn
out to be that of the opossum. It might just as well have been
like that of some other marsupial; or even like that of the
totally different group of Monotremes, of which the only living
representatives are the
Echidna and the
Ornithorhynchus.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33