practical one in the ordinary sense of the word. Consider the theory of
infectious disease. Surely that is of interest to all of us. Now the
theory of infectious disease is rapidly being elucidated by biological
study. It is possible to produce, from among the lower animals,
examples of devastating diseases which spread in the same manner as our
infectious disorders, and which are certainly and unmistakably caused
by living organisms. This fact renders it possible, at any rate, that
that doctrine of the causation of infectious disease which is known
under the name of "the germ theory" may be well-founded; and, if so, it
must needs lead to the most important practical measures in dealing
with those terrible visitations. It may be well that the general, as
well as the professional, public should have a sufficient knowledge of
biological truths to be able to take a rational interest in the
discussion of such problems, and to see, what I think they may hope to
see, that, to those who possess a sufficient elementary knowledge of
Biology, they are not all quite open questions.
Let me mention another important practical illustration of the value of
biological study. Within the last forty years the theory of agriculture
has been revolutionised. The researches of Liebig, and those of our own
Lawes and Gilbert, have had a bearing upon that branch of industry the
importance of which cannot be over-estimated; but the whole of these
new views have grown out of the better explanation of certain processes
which go on in plants; and which, of course, form a part of the
subject-matter of Biology.
I might go on multiplying these examples, but I see that the clock
won't wait for me, and I must therefore pass to the third question to
which I referred:--Granted that Biology is something worth studying,
what is the best way of studying it? Here I must point out that, since
Biology is a physical science, the method of studying it must needs be
analogous to that which is followed in the other physical sciences. It
has now long been recognised that, if a man wishes to be a chemist, it
is not only necessary that he should read chemical books and attend
chemical lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamental
experiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly what
the words which he finds in his books and hears from his teachers,
mean. If he does not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, but he
will never know much about chemistry. That is what every chemist will
tell you, and the physicist will do the same for his branch of science.
The great changes and improvements in physical and chemical scientific
education, which have taken place of late, have all resulted from the
combination of practical teaching with the reading of books and with
the hearing of lectures. The same thing is true in Biology. Nobody
will ever know anything about Biology except in a dilettante
"paper-philosopher" way, who contents himself with reading books on
botany, zoology, and the like; and the reason of this is simple and
easy to understand. It is that all language is merely symbolical of the
things of which it treats; the more complicated the things, the more
bare is the symbol, and the more its verbal definition requires to be
supplemented by the information derived directly from the handling, and
the seeing, and the touching of the thing symbolised:--that is really
what is at the bottom of the whole matter. It is plain common sense, as
all truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified. If you want
a man to be a tea merchant, you don't tell him to read books about
China or about tea, but you put him into a tea-merchant's office where
he has the handling, the smelling, and the tasting of tea. Without the
sort of knowledge which can be gained only in this practical way, his
exploits as a tea merchant will soon come to a bankrupt termination.
The "paper-philosophers" are under the delusion that physical science
can be mastered as literary accomplishments are acquired, but
unfortunately it is not so. You may read any quantity of books, and you
may be almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don't have,
at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images
which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing
faculties on the phenomena of nature.
It may be said:--"That is all very well, but you told us just now that
there are probably something like a quarter of a million different
kinds of living and extinct animals and plants, and a human life could
not suffice for the examination of one-fiftieth part of all these."
That is true, but then comes the great convenience of the way things
are arranged; which is, that although there are these immense numbers
of different kinds of living things in existence, yet they are built
up, after all, upon marvellously few plans.
There are certainly more than 100,000 species of insects, and yet
anybody who knows one insect--if a properly chosen one--will be able
to have a very fair conception of the structure of the whole. I do not
mean to say he will know that structure thoroughly, or as well as it is
desirable he should know it; but he will have enough real knowledge to
enable him to understand what he reads, to have genuine images in his
mind of those structures which become so variously modified in all the
forms of insects he has not seen. In fact, there are such things as
types of form among animals and vegetables, and for the purpose of
getting a definite knowledge of what constitutes the leading
modifications of animal and plant life, it is not needful to examine
more than a comparatively small number of animals and plants.
Let me tell you what we do in the biological laboratory which is lodged
in a building adjacent to this. There I lecture to a class of students
daily for about four-and-a-half months, and my class have, of course,
their text-books; but the essential part of the whole teaching, and
that which I regard as really the most important part of it, is a
laboratory for practical work, which is simply a room with all the
appliances needed for ordinary dissection. We have tables properly
arranged in regard to light, microscopes, and dissecting instruments,
and we work through the structure of a certain number of animals and
plants. As, for example, among the plants, we take a yeast plant, a
_Protococcus_, a common mould, a _Chara_, a fern, and some
flowering plant; among animals we examine such things as an _Amoeba_,
_a Vorticella_, and a fresh-water polype. We dissect a star-fish,
an earth-worm, a snail, a squid, and a fresh-water mussel. We
examine a lobster and a cray-fish, and a black beetle. We go on to a
common skate, a cod-fish, a frog, a tortoise, a pigeon, and a rabbit,
and that takes us about all the time we have to give. The purpose of
this course is not to make skilled dissectors, but to give every
student a clear and definite conception, by means of sense-images, of
the characteristic structure of each of the leading modifications of
the animal kingdom; and that is perfectly possible, by going no further
than the length of that list of forms which I have enumerated. If a man
knows the structure of the animals I have mentioned, he has a clear and
exact, however limited, apprehension of the essential features of the
organisation of all those great divisions of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms to which the forms I have mentioned severally belong. And it
then becomes possible for him to read with profit; because every time
he meets with the name of a structure, he has a definite image in his
mind of what the name means in the particular creature he is reading
about, and therefore the reading is not mere reading. It is not mere
repetition of words; but every term employed in the description, we
will say, of a horse, or of an elephant, will call up the image of the
things he had seen in the rabbit, and he is able to form a distinct
conception of that which he has not seen, as a modification of that
which he has seen.
I find this system to yield excellent results; and I have no hesitation
whatever in saying, that any one who has gone through such a course,
attentively, is in a better position to form a conception of the great
truths of Biology, especially of morphology (which is what we chiefly
deal with), than if he had merely read all the books on that topic put
together.
The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection of Scientific
Apparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection of certain
aids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that very
interesting collection may have noticed a series of diagrams and of
preparations illustrating the structure of a frog. Those diagrams and
preparations have been made for the use of the students in the
biological laboratory. Similar diagrams and preparations illustrating
the structure of all the other forms of life we examine, are either
made or in course of preparation. Thus the student has before him,
first, a picture of the structure he ought to see; secondly, the
structure itself worked out; and if with these aids, and such needful
explanations and practical hints as a demonstrator can supply, he
cannot make out the facts for himself in the materials supplied to him,
he had better take to some other pursuit than that of biological
science.
I should have been glad to have said a few words about the use of
museums in the study of Biology, but I see that my time is becoming
short, and I have yet another question to answer. Nevertheless, I must,
at the risk of wearying you, say a word or two upon the important
subject of museums. Without doubt there are no helps to the study of
Biology, or rather to some branches of it, which are, or may be, more
important than natural history museums; but, in order to take this
place in regard to Biology, they must be museums of the future. The
museums of the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as they
might do. I do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many of you,
seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a holiday
usefully, have visited some great natural history museum. You have
walked through a quarter of a mile of animals, more or less well
stuffed, with their long names written out underneath them; and, unless
your experience is very different from that of most people, the upshot
of it all is that you leave that splendid pile with sore feet, a bad
headache, and a general idea that the animal kingdom is a "mighty maze
without a plan." I do not think that a museum which brings about this
result does all that may be reasonably expected from such an
institution. What is needed in a collection of natural history is that
it should be made as accessible and as useful as possible, on the one
hand to the general public, and on the other to scientific workers.
That need is not met by constructing a sort of happy hunting-ground of
miles of glass cases; and, under the pretence of exhibiting everything
putting the maximum amount of obstacle in the way of those who wish
properly to see anything.
What the public want is easy and unhindered access to such a collection
as they can understand and appreciate; and what the men of science want
is similar access to the materials of science. To this end the
vast mass of objects of natural history should be divided into two
parts--one open to the public, the other to men of science, every day.
The former division should exemplify all the more important and
interesting forms of life. Explanatory tablets should be attached to
them, and catalogues containing clearly-written popular expositions of
the general significance of the objects exhibited should be provided.
The latter should contain, packed into a comparatively small space, in
rooms adapted for working purposes, the objects of purely scientific
interest. For example, we will say I am an ornithologist. I go to
examine a collection of birds. It is a positive nuisance to have them
stuffed. It is not only sheer waste, but I have to reckon with the
ideas of the bird-stuffer, while, if I have the skin and nobody has
interfered with it, I can form my own judgment as to what the bird was
like. For ornithological purposes, what is needed is not glass cases
full of stuffed birds on perches, but convenient drawers into each of
which a great quantity of skins will go. They occupy no great space and
do not require any expenditure beyond their original cost. But for the
edification of the public, who want to learn indeed, but do not seek
for minute and technical knowledge, the case is different. What one of
the general public walking into a collection of birds desires to see is
not all the birds that can be got together. He does not want to compare
a hundred species of the sparrow tribe side by side; but he wishes to
know what a bird is, and what are the great modifications of bird
structure, and to be able to get at that knowledge easily. What will
best serve his purpose is a comparatively small number of birds
carefully selected, and artistically, as well as accurately, set up;
with their different ages, their nests, their young, their eggs, and
their skeletons side by side; and in accordance with the admirable plan
which is pursued in this museum, a tablet, telling the spectator
in legible characters what they are and what they mean. For the
instruction and recreation of the public such a typical collection
would be of far greater value than any many-acred imitation of Noah's
ark.
Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may best be
pursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should not be made, to
a certain extent, a part of ordinary school training. I have long
advocated this view, and I am perfectly certain that it can be carried
out with ease, and not only with ease, but with very considerable
profit to those who are taught; but then such instruction must be
adapted to the minds and needs of the scholars. They used to have a
very odd way of teaching the classical languages when I was a boy. The
first task set you was to learn the rules of the Latin grammar in the
Latin language--that being the language you were going to learn! I
thought then that this was an odd way of learning a language, but
did not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now,
perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself to think
that it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be no less absurd, if
we were to set about teaching Biology by putting into the hands of
boys a series of definitions of the classes and orders of the animal
kingdom, and making them repeat them by heart. That is so very
favourite a method of teaching, that I sometimes fancy the spirit of
the old classical system has entered into the new scientific system, in
which case I would much rather that any pretence at scientific teaching
were abolished altogether. What really has to be done is to get into
the young mind some notion of what animal and vegetable life is. In
this matter, you have to consider practical convenience as well as
other things. There are difficulties in the way of a lot of boys making
messes with slugs and snails; it might not work in practice. But there
is a very convenient and handy animal which everybody has at hand, and
that is himself; and it is a very easy and simple matter to obtain
common plants. Hence the general truths of anatomy and physiology can
be taught to young people in a very real fashion by dealing with the
broad facts of human structure. Such viscera as they cannot very well
examine in themselves, such as hearts, lungs, and livers, may be
obtained from the nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teaching
something about the biology of plants, there is no practical
difficulty, because almost any of the common plants will do, and plants
do not make a mess--at least they do not make an unpleasant mess; so
that, in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to very
young people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, and the
elements of botany on the other; beyond that I do not think it will be
feasible to advance for some time to come. But then I see no reason,
why, in secondary schools, and in the Science Classes which are under
the control of the Science and Art Department--and which I may say, in
passing, have in my judgment, done so very much for the diffusion of a
knowledge of science over the country--we should not hope to see
instruction in the elements of Biology carried out, not perhaps to the
same extent, but still upon somewhat the same principle as here. There
is no difficulty, when you have to deal with students of the ages of
fifteen or sixteen, in practising a little dissection and in getting a
notion of, at any rate, the four or five great modifications of the
animal form; and the like is true in regard to the higher anatomy of
plants.
While, lastly, to all those who are studying biological science with
a view to their own edification merely, or with the intention of
becoming zoologists or botanists; to all those who intend to pursue
physiology--and especially to those who propose to employ the working
years of their lives in the practice of medicine--I say that there is
no training so fitted, or which may be of such important service to
them, as the discipline in practical biological work which I have
sketched out as being pursued in the laboratory hard by.
* * * * *
I may add that, beyond all these different classes of persons who may
profit by the study of Biology, there is yet one other. I remember, a
number of years ago, that a gentleman who was a vehement opponent of
Mr. Darwin's views and had written some terrible articles against them,
applied to me to know what was the best way in which he could acquaint
himself with the strongest arguments in favour of evolution. I wrote
back, in all good faith and simplicity, recommending him to go through
a course of comparative anatomy and physiology, and then to study
development. I am sorry to say he was very much displeased, as people
often are with good advice. Notwithstanding this discouraging result, I
venture, as a parting word, to repeat the suggestion, and to say to all
the more or less acute lay and clerical "paper-philosophers" [7] who
venture into the regions of biological controversy--Get a little sound,
thorough, practical, elementary instruction in biology.
* * * * *
Footnotes:
[1] See the distinction between the "sciences physiques" and the
"sciences physiologiques" in the _Anatomie Générale_, 1801.
[2] _Hydrogéologie_, an. x. (1801).
[3] "The term _Biology_, which means exactly what we wish to
express, _the Science of Life_, has often been used, and has of
late become not uncommon, among good writers."--Whewell, _Philosophy
of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. p. 544 (edition of 1847).
[4] I think that my friend, Professor Allman, was the first to draw
attention to it.
[5] Galileo was troubled by a sort of people whom he called "paper
philosophers," because they fancied that the true reading of nature was
to be detected by the collation of texts. The race is not extinct, but,
as of old, brings forth its "winds of doctrine" by which the
weathercock heads among us are much exercised.
[6] Some critics do not even take the trouble to read. I have recently
been adjured with much solemnity; to state publicly why I have "changed
my opinion" as to the value of the palaeontological evidence of the
occurrence of evolution.
To this my reply is, Why should I, when that statement was made seven
years ago? An address delivered from the Presidential Chair of the
Geological Society, in 1870, may be said to be a public document,
inasmuch as it not only appeared in the _Journal_ of that learned
body, but was re-published, in 1873, in a volume of _Critiques and
Addresses_, to which my name is attached. Therein will be found a
pretty full statement of my reasons for enunciating two propositions:
(1) that "when we turn to the higher _Vertebrata_, the results of
recent investigations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem to
me to leave a clear balance in favour of the evolution of living forms
one from another;" and (2) that the case of the horse is one which
"will stand rigorous criticism." Thus I do not see clearly in what way
I can be said to have changed my opinion, except in the way of
intensifying it, when in consequence of the accumulation of similar
evidence since 1870, I recently spoke of the denial of evolution as not
worth serious consideration.
[7] Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the Baconian
method. I beg them therefore to lay to heart these two weighty sayings
of the herald of Modern Science:--
"Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verba
notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsae (_id quod basis rei
est_) confusae sint et temere a rebus abstractae, nihil in iis quae
superstruuntur est firmitudinis."--_Novum Organon_, ii. 14.
"Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa levitate ita
indulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliis
scripturis sacris, philosophiam naturalem fundare conati sint; _inter
vivos quaerentes mortua_."--_Ibid_. 65.
XI
ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY
[1877]
The chief ground upon which I venture to recommend that the teaching of
elementary physiology should form an essential part of any organised
course of instruction in matters pertaining to domestic economy, is,
that a knowledge of even the elements of this subject supplies those
conceptions of the constitution and mode of action of the living body,
and of the nature of health and disease, which prepare the mind to
receive instruction from sanitary science.
It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist and the
physician should find something in the public mind to which they can
appeal; some little stock of universally acknowledged truths, which may
serve as a foundation for their warnings, and predispose towards an
intelligent obedience to their recommendations.
Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease, and death, one is
often led to entertain a doubt whether the speakers believe that the
course of natural causation runs as smoothly in the human body as
elsewhere. Indications are too often obvious of a strong, though
perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, under-current of opinion that
the phenomena of life are not only widely different, in their
superficial characters and in their practical importance, from other
natural events, but that they do not follow in that definite order
which characterises the succession of all other occurrences, and the
statement of which we call a law of nature.
Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of belief in the value of
knowledge respecting the laws of health and disease, and of the
foresight and care to which knowledge is the essential preliminary,
which is so often noticeable; and a corresponding laxity and
carelessness in practice, the results of which are too frequently
lamentable.
It is said that among the many religious sects of Russia, there is one
which holds that all disease is brought about by the direct and special
interference of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repugnance
upon both preventive and curative measures as alike blasphemous
interferences with the will of God. Among ourselves, the "Peculiar
People" are, I believe, the only persons who hold the like doctrine in
its integrity, and carry it out with logical rigour. But many of us are
old enough to recollect that the administration of chloroform in
assuagement of the pangs of child-birth was, at its introduction,
strenuously resisted upon similar grounds.