264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



it affords. It is preeminently the field for the amateur and the un- 

 trained worker. According to this view, a piece of systematic work may 

 well be a part of the training of all professional zoologists, but capable 

 men will naturally go on into the supposedly more fertile fields of 

 physiology, cytology and experimental zoology. 



As is usually the case where diverse opinions clash, a measure of 

 truth is to be found in each one of the above-mentioned three, and 

 doubtless there are other views more or less equally true, to which I 

 have given no expression. As a systematist I should be very glad if I 

 could bring myself to believe that the second view, formulated above, 

 is essentially correct but the more I have thought on the subject the 

 more strongly I have felt that it claims too much. It juggles with words 

 and distorts some inescapable facts. On the other hand, every system- 

 atist whose zoological horizon is not hopelessly limited must reject 

 the first view as utterly inadequate, while he will very naturally resent 

 the implications of the third. There can be no question that so far as 

 it goes the first view is true ; naming species and cataloguing them, and 

 even determining the correct names to use, are a conspicuous part of 

 systematic work still. If, however, the systematist goes no further, he 

 can not expect high rank as a zoologist. He ought not to ignore the 

 significance of his observed facts; he ought to welcome, even if he can 

 not seek for, information from each and every part of the field of 

 zoology. If he neglects or refuses to listen to the suggestions of physiol- 

 ogy, embryology or paleontology, he is not worthy of his task. And this, 

 it seems to me, is the very real truth in the second view mentioned. In 

 the third view, the vital fact is that good systematic work requires more 

 than ordinary training of the abilities to see, and to estimate the rela- 

 tive worth- of the facts observed. It errs in assuming that a mind so 

 trained can not find an adequate field of usefulness in systematic 

 zoology. 



Combining the above-given truths, we find we are still far from 

 expressing the central purpose of systematic zoology. We have only 

 brought together a statement of certain means to be used, of certain 

 sources of material and of certain abilities required. The end in view 

 is hardly suggested. As the purpose of zoology is something beyond 

 the mere knowledge of all the phenomena of animal life, seeking further 

 the true interpretation of those phenomena and even further to the 

 ultimate interpretation of life itself, so it seems to me, the purpose of 

 systematic zoology reaches beyond the mere increasing of our knowledge 

 of animal forms and seeks a true interpretation of the resemblances 

 and differences which we find among them. Primarily, however, it 

 deals with results and is only indirectly concerned with the methods 

 by which those results have been attained. It deals with the travelers, 

 the routes traveled and the destinations reached in the animal kingdom, 



