44 



BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



understanding between the representatives of the different 

 branches of the same science. To magnify one's own office is 

 a very human infirmity, but it involves a minimizing of the 

 offices of others. Science is not advanced by the sneers of its 

 representatives at one another as mere "species-makers," or 

 "section-cutters," or "closet-naturalists," as the case may be. 

 One is prone to regard with instinctive distrust results which 

 run counter to cherished convictions, or which ill harmonize 

 with prevalent theories and call for a radical readjustment of 

 opinion. Naturally, the investigator is apt to place undue 

 reliance upon the methods with which he is familiar and to 

 undervalue other ways of attacking the same problem. Evidence 

 derived from other lines of investigation means less to him and 

 is the more readily overlooked and ignored. Perhaps the 

 greatest danger which at present threatens the healthy growth 

 of zoological science in all its branches is the ever-increasing 

 tendency to ambitious speculation, founded upon the narrowest 

 basis of fact. So much of a theoretical taint attaches to nearly 

 all morphological work, as to cause hesitation in fully accepting 

 it, and one often feels in reading that we have gone back to 

 the days of the transcendental anatomists. The glib use of 

 phrases and formulae, which hide ignorance under the guise of 

 "explanations" which do not explain, is an outgrowth of the 

 same tendency. It is the fashion to measure with elastic stand- 

 ards, which expand and contract to meet the needs of each 

 case. Dosfmatism and narrow-mindedness have ever been 

 closely akin. 



The obvious corrective for many of these evils is to take a 

 wider view of our subject, and for each of us to learn some- 

 thing of the methods and results of workers in other fields than 

 our own. I wish to invite your attention to a branch of mor- 

 phology, the bearings of which are much misapprehended by the 

 representatives of other departments of the same science, and 

 which, where not completely ignored, is often wofully abused, 

 namely, the subject of palaeontology. This science has too long 

 been abandoned to the geologist, but morphologists are coming to 

 see that they have an interest in it, and sometimes condescend 

 to make use of such parts of its data as favor their opinions. 



