36 William Keith Brooks 



not also a formative part of their environment. Thus 

 William Bateson, the present leader in studies of varia- 

 tion and heredity, coming to the Chesapeake laboratory 

 to continue embryological studies on Blanoglossus and 

 the origin of the vertebrates, first heard the problems of 

 heredity, from Brooks, in long and intimate discussion 

 and exposition. 



Professor Brooks's religious beliefs remain unknown to 

 me, but the view-point of his intellect may be inferred 

 from the following extracts from the "Foundations of 

 Zoology" : 



"If any believe they have evidence of a power outside 

 nature to which both its origin and its maintenance from 

 day to day are due, physical science tells them nothing 

 inconsistent with this belief. If failure to find any sus- 

 taining virtue in matter and motion is evidence of an 

 external sustaining power, physical science affords this 

 evidence; but no one who admits this can hope to escape 

 calumny ; although it seems clear that the man of science 

 is right, . . . for refusing to admit that he knows 

 the laws of physical nature in any way except as observed 

 order. 



"Many will, no doubt, receive with incredulity the 

 assertion that the ultimate establishment of mechanical 

 conceptions of life has no bearing, either positively or 

 negatively, upon the validity of such beliefs as the doc- 

 trine of immortality, for example. The opinion that life 

 may be deducible from the properties of protoplasm has, 

 by almost universal consent, been held to involve the 

 admission that the destruction of the living organism is, 

 of necessity, the annihilation of life. Yet it seems clear 

 that this deduction is utterly baseless and unscientific; 

 . . . if it be admitted that we find in nature no reason 

 why events should occur together except the fact that 

 they do, is it not clear that we can give no reason why 

 life and protoplasm should be associated except the fact 

 that they are? And is it not equally clear that this is no 

 reason why they may not exist separately ?" 



