WORK OF THE NATURALIST IN THE WORLD. 61 



obstacles that we do not attain the ideal. The practical question 

 is, What are these obstacles, and how may they be removed, 

 avoided, or overcome ? We undoubtedly make many failures, 

 which are inevitable, and for which we are not responsible ; I 

 mean such failures as are due to the present limits of scientific 

 knowledge, and the lack of the methods and instruments of re- 

 search, which are as yet in the future. Nevertheless, the majority 

 of failures to find the absolute truth are due to our own personal 

 deficiencies. It is to the correction and, if possible, removal of 

 these deficiencies that our professional training is very rightly 

 directed. 



The naturalist should be trained in observation, experimenta- 

 tion, and in reasoning. 



Observation is our mainstay, the foundation of all our work. 

 I believe that in many of our laboratories a student becomes well 

 disciplined in observation, and acquires practical acquaintance 

 with the principal sources of error in observation in his special 

 line of work. This part of the naturalist's education is the part 

 best done, and we must regretfully admit that his training in ex- 

 perimentation is almost nil, while his training in reasoning power 

 leaves very much to be desired. 



I should like to plead before you for experimentation. It is a 

 most difficult art far more difficult than that of observation, be- 

 cause the possibilities of error are far greater. The observer in- 

 quires " What ? " the experimenter " Why ? " The experimenter 

 endeavors to determine an effect and a cause. He seeks, if you 

 will allow me the expression, to find two " whats " and their 

 mutual relation. Every science begins with observation, and, 

 when it is advanced enough, takes to experiments. Natural his- 

 tory is still in the descriptive stage. The statement is almost 

 strictly true of meteorology and zoology, nearly so of geology, 

 least so of botany. I attribute so great value to experimental 

 work that I regard botany as being at the present time the most 

 valuable of the natural-history sciences from an educational point 

 of view. As regards the zoologists with whom I must be counted 

 we are most of us either systematists or morphologists. Such 

 experimental physiological work as has been done stands not to 

 the credit of zoologists, but almost entirely to that of medical men. 

 In the slow advance of experimental morphology, through the la- 

 bors of Driesch, Hertwig, Morgan, Roux, Whitman, Wilson, and 

 others, we have the initiation of a most significant and beneficent 

 reform. In all natural-history departments the great work of the 

 future will, I believe, be done by experimenters. 



For this reason it is to be desired earnestly that all young 

 naturalists should be disciplined in making experiments. When 

 that is done we shall hear less phylogenetic speculation and more 



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