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 15 or 16, 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.
[1] See the distinction between the "sciences physiques" and the
"sciences physiologiques" in the "Anatomic Générale," 1801.
[2] "Hydrogeologie," 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
palæontological 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 tesseræ sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsæ
(_id quod basis rei est_) confusæ sint et temere a rebus
abstractæ, nihil in iis quæ 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 quærentes mortua_."--_Ibid._, 65.