1899] THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY 449 



describes, analyses, discloses chains of sequence, gives mediate explana- 

 tions, perhaps, but certainly no ultimate explanations. We get hold 

 of certain fractions of reality which interest us, we seek to see them 

 as clearly as may be, to put them in an ordered series, to reduce them, 

 if possible, to a common denominator, but we do not explain our 

 common denominator, any more than the philosopher his greatest 

 common measure. "We may seek to explain certain facts in terms of 

 protoplasm, but we do not explain protoplasm ; we continually speak 

 of the organism, but no one knows what the secret of its unity is ; we 

 believe that animals have been " evolved," but we know that to say 

 so is to raise a problem rather than to solve it. From the careful 

 study of any biological question we are bound to end in this recogni- 

 tion of the relativity of our aims, to feel, as Fouillce says, that science 

 is like a broken mirror, whose reflections of reality philosophy seeks 

 to reunite, but if at any time we should be tempted to ignore it in our 

 satisfaction at the illumination of some dark corner, or at the success- 

 ful testing of some hypothesis, we shall at once regain sanity if we go 

 out into the midst of the real life of sea and river, of wood and meadow, 

 and looking Nature full in the face dare to say — " We can explain 

 all this." 



I have spoken of the naturalist's work only in so far as it helps 

 us to a greater appreciation and understanding of the life of animals 

 in nature. I have said nothing of its relations to the practical life of 

 man which animal life touches at so many points. I have said very 

 little of its relations to the big problems of biology — protoplasm and 

 the cell, growth and reproduction, heredity, and the like. To have 

 discussed these would have obscured my simple thesis, which is just 

 this, that a stable and progressive natural history requires all the help 

 which the special disciplines — the answers to our four questions — can 

 afford ; and, on the other hand, that the special disciplines lose in 

 interest, dignity, logical completeness, and effectiveness if they lose 

 touch with natural history. 



A well-known philosopher is reported to have spoken of natural 

 history as " one of those Kindergarten subjects," but perhaps there is 

 no reason for us to take offence at that. We do not go far before we 

 find that the study of natural history raises problems even to state 

 which requires all the intellectual virtue and manliness which we may 

 have ; and yet the suggestion of the Kindergarten prompts me to say 

 that we shall not do ill if we can study our subject with the inquisi- 

 tiveness, open-mindedness, daring, and humility of children. For it is 

 true of the kingdom of science, as of the Kingdom of Heaven, that 

 it is as little children — cautiously trying our steps — that we may 

 enter in. 



