4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ogists, who see their own cubist diagrams, instead of living, growing 

 things ; the cytologists, breeders and experimentalists, with their thumb- 

 nail sketches of the minute machinery of life, and of heredity; with 

 their now widely familiar Mendelism, chromosomes, tropisms, artificial 

 parthenogenesis and eugenics. 



The precise methods of the modern biologist may give us com- 

 mendably accurate pictures of some particular point, or phase, of life, 

 as life is at the present moment. They have, no doubt, greatly stimu- 

 lated and enriched the science of biology ; but they have not clarified it, 

 nor unified it to a corresponding degree, because they have not given us 

 large pictures of the processes and products of evolution; and because 

 their formulas, when widely applied, are contradictory and often mean- 

 ingless. They lack perspective, and for that reason they have not taken, 

 nor can they take, the place of the descriptive and historic sciences, such 

 as geology, paleontology and comparative anatomy. They alone can 

 show us approximately what life was like in the remote past, the 

 wonderful progress it has made, its method of making progress, and 

 the order of its accomplishment. 



Thus the multiplicity, and the changing intensity, of the images 

 formed by the compound eye of modern science have created much con- 

 fusion in the mind of the scientist and the layman; one that is aug- 

 mented by a prevalent opinion that certain points of view, and certain 

 methods of studying nature, are more "scientific," more truthful and 

 more trustworthy than others. 



It is clear that the microscopic, telescopic and panoramic methods of 

 studying nature have their respective virtues and the defects of their 

 qualities, for each method, and each point of view, shows important 

 things the other fails to reveal. In their attempts to portray nature, 

 biologists often forget the weakness of the one and fail to utilize the 

 strength of the other. By thus limiting their field of vision; by exag- 

 gerating the minute, the local, the dramatic, and the tragic incidents of 

 life, they overlook the most significant teachings of nature, although 

 they are familiarly and universally proclaimed by her. The layman is 

 always a loser thereby, for while the sicklied germs of truth fly far and 

 wide on the white wings of explanatory lies, the mature plant is too 

 deep rooted and ponderous to be successfully transplanted. 



III. Tragic, Cooperative, and Benevolent Nature 



The picture of nature painted by the field naturalists was a warring, 

 hostile nature, "red in tooth and claw with ravine." Its merciless 

 struggle for existence, its wanton destruction and tragic incident, as 

 portrayed by their disciples, deeply moved both scientist and layman, 

 and greatly influenced the conduct and the interpretation of human life. 



But the attention of the naturalists was mainly focused on the fifth 



