NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 235 



raent in this description of knowledge, and very generally an unqualified de- 

 sire to attain the utmost possible proficiency. Instances occur, however, of 

 exceeding ignorance and carelessness, and, in fact, it is not quite certain that 

 the general disposition to, and respect for, research and erudition has not de- 

 clined in Ornithology within the last quarter of a century, in a degree per- 

 haps unusual in the Sciences. There is no reason that erudition in the liter- 

 ature of the Natural Sciences, through knowledge of books and the fullest re- 

 search, should be less respectable than in any other department of Human Know- 

 ledge, nor that in those Sciences this description of acquirement should not be 

 more respectable than ignorance. Here, too, as everywhere else, the great princi- 

 ples of Ethics, founded in the clear truths of Religion and Nature, should be 

 allowed the most extended jurisdiction and control, without qualification. 

 The morals of the Natural Sciences, most certainly, are not peculiar in any 

 particular, nor involve principles different in any respect from those univers- 

 ally recognized in the practical pursuits of mankind, and which have elicited 

 the most cordial assent and approbation of all civilized men. Justice, Hon- 

 esty, Industry, in fact, all the great practical and household virtues are as 

 indispensable in the relations of cultivators of the Sciences past and present 

 as elsewhere ; possibly, it might be ventured to be suggested, ought to be 

 rather, the more devotedly practised by men aspiring to be authors, and as- 

 suming somewhat to be teachers of mankind. 



One prominent article of any code of zoological ethics that I might propose 

 would be, that every author should be cited, and otherwise and in all re- 

 spects treated justly and respectfully, so long as he can be found in print. 

 It is perhaps safely to be assumed, also, that all authors ought to be treated 

 courteously as well as justly, without reference to the extent of their publi- 

 cations, whether great or small. If belonging to that useful and laborious 

 class of naturalists who are essentially describers of species that class which 

 possesses real knowledge, even if without hypotheses their descriptions 

 should be cited, and themselves too, as authorities, so long as such descrip- 

 tions are known to exist. There is not, evidently, any other course consistent 

 with Justice and the plainest principles of right and morality, and, in fact, 

 no alternative, unless, indeed, an operator is disposed to set himself up for the 

 first of all history, as is said of an early Chinese Emperor. The latter course, 

 in a degree, singular as it may appear, is not entirely unknown to naturalists, 

 especially to those who regard Science rather as a Milch Cow than as a 

 transcendent Goddess a distinction in classification first made by the great 

 poet Schiller. 



Persons addicted to hypotheses, otherwise sometimes rather loosely called 

 Systematists and Generalizes, cannot be too careful in this description of 

 respectful treatment, especially in view of the fact that the descriptive natur- 

 alists and students of species possess the great fund of real knowledge ; and 

 although describers of species may be nothing else, without the knowledge of 

 such, no one can be anything else.* It is the descriptive naturalist, too, co- 

 operating nowadays with the Anatomist and Chemist, who has brought for- 

 ward the material so sharply testing the systems, that very few, iu fact nearly 

 no?ie, have stood it! The tide of time is strewed with the wrecks of Systems 

 and Generalizations, gone to a death worse than that of the dry bones of the 

 Prophet, for they can never again live. The descriptive naturalists are the 

 true rank and file, with many outriding skirmishers, and quasi great func- 

 tionaries in attendance, garrulous, perhaps, and imperious, but of little real 

 account; the true officers are from the ranks, and have worked their way. 



* Linnaeus says: "Botanices Tyro noTit Classes, Canditatus omnia Genera, Magister plurimas 

 species. Quo plures Botanicus noverit species, eo etiam praestantior est. Cognitione specieruni 

 innititur omnis solida eruditio Physica, Oeconomica, Medica: immo omnis vera cognitio hurnana." 

 Philosophia Botauica, p. 202 (1751). These are the words of a right Sagamann. 



1864.] 



