Sir Arthur Thomson 267 



paragraph quoted from Sir Arthur's New Natural History, 

 published by Messrs Newnes, Ltd. I 



When we try to get a picture of the sublime process of 

 organic evolution, which has no doubt continued for several 

 hundred million years, we receive certain great impressions. 

 One is the multitudinous production of individualities ; there 

 are over a quarter of a million different kinds of living animals 

 each itself and no other. A second impression concerns the 

 persistence with which every possible haunt of life has been 

 and is being peopled — from sea to land, from earth to air. A 

 third is centred on the establishment of fitness after fitness — 

 often with a marvellous nuance of adaptation. And then there 

 is the largest fact — that in the course of ages, the mental aspect 

 became increasingly manifest and masterful. 



John Arthur Thomson comes of a family of naturalists. 

 His father, a clergyman, was a keen botanist ; his grand- 

 father, also a clergyman, was a good zoologist, and the 

 future biologist was brought up in the country. He 

 studied at Edinburgh University, and then under the 

 famous Ernst Haeckel at Jena. He worked in Berlin, at 

 the Marine Biological Station in Naples, and was later 

 lecturer on zoology and biology at the School of Medicine 

 in Edinburgh. For thirty years he was Regius Professor 

 of Natural History at Aberdeen University, where he 

 formed one of the best small natural history museums in 

 the kingdom. Hardly any living naturalist has written 

 more widely upon nature, or more interestingly. In 

 1930 recognition was given to his work when his name 

 appeared in the Birthday Honours as the recipient of a 

 knighthood. 



