540 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ASPECTS OP MODERN BIOLOGY 1 



BY Professor T. D. A. COCKERKLL 



UNIVEESITY OF COLORADO 



DURING- the latter part of August, last year, the International 

 Zoological Congress met at Boston. This circumstance was not 

 very widely heralded by the press, nor did it make an impression on 

 the public mind at all comparable to that ordinarily produced by any 

 serious crime. Nevertheless, it was an event of the first importance, 

 this gathering of the zoological forces of all civilized countries to take 

 stock of the progress of the science and exchange fraternal greetings. 



To present any summary of the things said and done at that meet- 

 ing is neither desirable nor possible at the present time; but it may be 

 useful to consider what it all meant — where zoology now stands, and 

 what it stands for. 



Most typical, perhaps, of the whole trend of zoological thought was 

 the address of Professor William Bateson, of Cambridge University. 

 It dealt with the subject of genetics; the genesis of things, cells, indi- 

 viduals, species. It told of sequences actually observed rather than 

 contemporaneous facts arranged in rows. The methods advocated were 

 experimental, the range of investigation was the whole field of life. 



At the same time, the geneticologist did not refuse to recognize the 

 value of the other methods of research. Said Professor Bateson: 

 " When morphology was a new idea, everything was sacrificed to its 

 pursuit. Physiology, systematics, all were discarded as useless lumber. 

 Let us not repeat that short-sighted mistake. In the wider survey 

 which we are attempting we shall need all these things. If we are to 

 understand rightly the phenomena of specific difference — to take that 

 problem only — we shall be glad of anything that the systematist can 

 tell us, and of many deductions of pure physiology." 



The old natural history is having a new birth, with new hopes and 

 aspirations, but with the same unity of interest and of purpose. With 

 the growth of science, specialization was necessary and desirable. Yet 

 as time went on and zoology not only grew apart from botany, but the 

 various branches of zoology seemed to have different languages, it 

 appeared as if a tower of Babel would result. Even the systems of 

 nomenclature for genera and species, ostensibly the same throughout, 

 came to differ appreciably in different departments; and the various 



1 Lecture delivered before the Scientific Society of the University of Colo- 

 rado, January 20, 1908. 



