tematically as knowledge, has already been placed before you in a previous lecture; and it appears to me, that, as with other sciences, the common facts' of biology the uses of parts of the body the 5 names and habits of the living creatures which surround us - may be taught with advantage to the youngest child. Indeed, the avidity of children for this kind of knowledge, and the comparative ease with which they retain it, is something quite 10 marvellous. I doubt whether any toy would be so acceptable to young children as a vivarium of the same kind as, but of course on a smaller scale than, those admirable devices in the Zoological Gardens.

On the other hand, systematic teaching in biology 15 cannot be attempted with success until the student has attained to a certain knowledge of physics and chemistry; for though the phenomena of life are dependent neither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet they result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes which can only be judged by their own laws.

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And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I hope you see reason to follow me.

Biology needs no apologist when she demands a

place and a prominent place-in any scheme of education worthy of the name. Leave out the physiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the student into the world, undisciplined in that science -whose subject-matter would best 5 develop his powers of observation; ignorant of facts of the deepest importance for his own and others' welfare; blind to the richest sources of beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with that belief in a living law, and an order manifesting itself in and 10 through endless change and variety, which might serve to check and moderate that phase of despair through which, if he take an earnest interest in social problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass.

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Finally, one word for myself. I have not hesitated to speak strongly where I have felt strongly, and I am but too conscious that the indicative and imperative moods have too often taken the place of the more becoming subjunctive and conditional. 20 I feel, therefore, how necessary it is to beg you to forget the personality of him who has thus ventured to address you, and to consider only the truth or error in what has been said.

ΙΟ

VI

ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY

NATURAL History is the name familiarly applied to the study of the properties of such natural bodies as minerals, plants, and animals; the sciences which embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these 5 subjects are commonly termed natural sciences, in contradistinction to other so-called "physical" sciences; and those who devote themselves especially to the pursuit of such sciences have been and are commonly termed "Naturalists."

Linnæus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his Systema Natura was a work upon natural history, in the broadest acceptation of the term; in it that great methodizing spirit embodied all that was known in his time of the distinctive characters 15 of minerals, animals, and plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnæus gave to the investigation of

nature soon rendered it impossible that any one man should write another Systema Naturæ, and extremely difficult for any one to become a naturalist such as Linnæus was.

Great as have been the advances made by all the 5 three branches of science of old included under the title of natural history, there can be no doubt that zoology and botany have grown in an enormously greater ratio than mineralogy; and hence, as I suppose, the name of "natural history" has gradu- 10 ally become more and more definitely attached to these prominent divisions of the subject, and by

naturalist people have meant more and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure and functions of living beings.

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However this may be, it is certain that the advance of knowledge has gradually widened the distance between mineralogy and its old associates, while it has drawn zoology and botany closer together; so that of late years it has been found con- 20 venient (and indeed necessary) to associate the sciences which deal with vitality and all its phenomena under the common head of "biology"; and the biologists have come to repudiate any blood

relationship with their foster-brothers, the mineralogists.

Certain broad laws have a general application throughout both the animal and the vegetable 5 worlds, but the ground common to these kingdoms of nature is not of very wide extent, and the multiplicity of details is so great, that the student of living beings finds himself obliged to devote his attention exclusively either to the one or the other. To If he elects to study plants, under any aspect, we know at once what to call him. He is a botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investigation of animal life be his choice, the name generally applied to him will vary according to the kind of 15 animals he studies, or the particular phenomena of animal life to which he confines his attention. If the study of man is his object, he is called an anatomist, or a physiologist, or an ethnologist; but if he dissects animals, or examines into the mode in 20 which their functions are performed, he is a comparative anatomist or comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to fossil animals, he is a paleontologist. If his mind is more particularly directed to the description, specific discrimination,