Origin of Species"
was written, our knowledge of that record has been enormously extended
and we now possess, no complete volumes, it is true, but some remarkably
full and illuminating chapters. The main significance of the whole lies
in the fact, that JUST IN PROPORTION TO THE COMPLETENESS OF THE RECORD
IS THE UNEQUIVOCAL CHARACTER OF ITS TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH OF THE
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY.

The test of a true, as distinguished from a false, theory is the manner
in which newly discovered and unanticipated facts arrange themselves
under it. No more striking illustration of this can be found than in the
contrasted fates of Cuvier's theory and of that of Darwin. Even before
Cuvier's death his views had been undermined and the progress of
discovery soon laid them in irreparable ruin, while the activity of
half-a-century in many different lines of inquiry has established the
theory of evolution upon a foundation of ever growing solidity. It is
Darwin's imperishable glory that he prescribed the lines along which all
the biological sciences were to advance to conquests not dreamed of when
he wrote.

XII. THE PALAEONTOLOGICAL RECORD. By D.H. Scott, F.R.S.

President of the Linnean Society.

II. PLANTS.

There are several points of view from which the subject of the present
essay may be regarded. We may consider the fossil record of plants
in its bearing: I. on the truth of the doctrine of Evolution; II. on
Phylogeny, or the course of Evolution; III. on the theory of Natural
Selection. The remarks which follow, illustrating certain aspects only
of an extensive subject, may conveniently be grouped under these three
headings.

I. THE TRUTH OF EVOLUTION.

When "The Origin of Species" was written, it was necessary to show that
the Geological Record was favourable to, or at least consistent with,
the Theory of Descent. The point is argued, closely and fully, in
Chapter X. "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record," and Chapter
XI. "On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings"; there is, however,
little about plants in these chapters. At the present time the truth
of Evolution is no longer seriously disputed, though there are writers,
like Reinke, who insist, and rightly so, that the doctrine is still
only a belief, rather than an established fact of science. (J. Reinke,
"Kritische Abstammungslehre", "Wiesner-Festschrift", page 11, Vienna,
1908.) Evidently, then, however little the Theory of Descent may be
ques