Biographical Sketch 35 



could then be done toward the solution of problems that 

 yet await suchi experimental evidence as alone may make 

 their solution possible. 



The lectures and essays that grew into his book, "The 

 Foundations of Zoology," published in 1899, and again in 

 a revised edition, show Professor Brooks's breadth and 

 depth of philosophical thought, and it is upon this work 

 that his claim to a place amongst our immortals will 

 largely rest. 



But the estimate of Brooks as a leader of philosophical 

 zoology can best be left to the perspective that time will 

 bring, and to the minds of another generation biased 

 neither by love of Professor Brooks as a man nor, on the 

 other hand, by an absorption in the activities of our pres- 

 ent transition period of zoological methods and ideals. 

 What we can most surely appraise at the present 

 moment is the work of Brooks as friend and teacher, an 

 inspiration and example. Men who have worked in close 

 contact with Brooks now hold commanding positions in 

 the intellectual life of the world: the influence of their 

 living presence is exerted in Japan, and in England, in 

 South Africa and in Canada, and through his native 

 country from Maine to the gulf and from ocean to ocean. 

 On March 25, 1898, sixty of these students and friends 

 contributed with genuine feeling to celebrate his fiftieth 

 birthday. It was truly an unique personality that had 

 added to their rational enjoyment of life and helped in 

 their own struggles for ideals. 



These students of a pioneer in the field of American 

 embryology have naturally followed his lead and their 

 observations have been an extension and elaboration of 

 his work, whether in the same field or in newer ones 

 recently opened. His philosophical mind left its impress 

 upon their ways of thought in whatever part of zoology 

 they labored. The old problems of heredity are now 

 attacked by new methods, but some of the foremost inves- 

 tigators are bound to Professor Brooks, more or less 

 intimately, by nurture got when he was a stimulating if 



