262 . THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



knowledge its value. But the point of view and the methods of the 

 writer seemed so different from those of the other authors, that this 

 question arose in my mind — Is it fair to call such work systematic 

 zoology? And so, naturally, I fell to considering the purpose of sys- 

 tematic zoology and the principles which should govern it. 



A century ago any one who was a zoologist was, almost of 

 necessity, a systematist. Although Lamarck is now perhaps best 

 known for his contribution to philosophical zoology, he was pre- 

 eminent in his day as a systematic zoologist, and in some groups of 

 invertebrates his work may be regarded as forming in large part, if 

 not wholly, the foundation of our present classification. So too 

 Cuvier, famed as a comparative anatomist, left as his chief monument, 

 the great systematic work, " Le Eegne Animal," in which the results 

 of his anatomical studies were fittingly summarized. But in the days 

 of Lamarck and Cuvier, as Agassiz pointed out in his " Essay on 

 Classification," the fauna of Europe, so far as the larger animals were 

 concerned, became so well known that men with a love for zoology, but 

 without means of securing collections from foreign lands and not at- 

 tracted by the minute forms of life, turned from the describing and 

 classifying of animals to a more intensive study of those already well 

 known. Not only did anatomy receive more adequate attention, but 

 the habits of animals and their relation to their environment became 

 subjects of investigation, while under the inspiring leadership of 

 Dollinger and von Baer, embryology, virtually a new field, was opened 

 to investigators. Then came the days of Lyell, Agassiz, Darwin, Wal- 

 lace and their many illustrious contemporaries, and zoologists began to 

 realize the magnitude of their field and the multiplicity of its problems. 

 No such sudden enlargement of the field for zoological research had ever 

 occurred before and probably never will again. It was natural, there- 

 fore, that many zoologists working on the frontiers of the new territory 

 should not merely lose sight of their fellows, who had not traveled so far, 

 or who had journeyed in different directions, but should also lose sym- 

 pathy with them. Although the lazy, the easy-going, the incompetent, 

 do as a rule lag behind when a new country is opened, those who remain 

 in the old fields do not usually do so from laziness or incompetence, 

 Charlatans and self-seekers are conspicuous in frontier communities, 

 but, of course, the majority of those at the front are not such. A man's 

 motives may be the highest and the quality of his work the best, regard- 

 less of whether he remains in the old fields or seeks to push the frontier 

 further on. In any case, however, he should know what he is trying to 

 do and why he is trying to do it. He should be ready and willing to give 

 a reason for the faith that is in him — faith that the work he is doing 

 ought to be done and that it is his work. It is eminently fitting, there- 

 fore, that we who are still busied with systematic zoology should make 



