FERRIS: THE CONTRIBUTION OF NATURAL HISTORY TO HUMAN PROGRESS 87 



to mankind, must think of his specimens as being merely samples of great popu- 

 lations living out of doors under natural conditions. This systematist may sit 

 at his microscope or his desk working only with the variously preserved remains 

 of his specimens, but if he has any vision of his place in tlie great endeavor to 

 improve the world, that vision must reach far outside the walls of his study or 

 laboratory — and does. 



So biological systematics still has a place as a part of the great endeavor that 

 has as its goal human progress — progress intellectually and progress in more 

 immediatel}" applicable things. It still maintains its former place of importance 

 in natural history, for it furnishes the material with which a naturalist must 

 work. The ecologist, the student of geographical distribution, the student of 

 biological control, and even the student of genetics — especially with reference 

 to the origin of species — must make use of its findings. Systematics may change 

 — and it is to be hoped that it does change — ^from concentrating its attention so 

 much upon ''new species" to concentrating primarily upon the problems of clas- 

 sification and upon its liaison with other branches of biology and the contribu- 

 tions that it may make to such general problems as those having to do with the 

 mechanism of evolution, but its continuing place is secure. 



Genetics: One of the most interesting developments of systematic biology is its 

 liaison with genetics. During the years in which Mendelian genetics was strug- 

 gling to establish its body of ascertained fact there was but little opportunity and 

 little time to consider the relation of the implications of genetics to other fields 

 of biology. But, with this basic body of fact quite well determined and with the 

 underlying principles established, the opportunity has finally come and to some 

 extent has been grasped to explore connections with other fields. One of the 

 most fruitful of those fields is biological systematics. In the problem of how the 

 members of a single interbreeding population become differentiated into two or 

 more distinct and finally non-interbreeding populations genetics and systematics 

 reach a common ground, for both have here their common interest in the matter 

 of evolution. Thus at last there has arisen by hybridization between the offspring 

 of natural history and that relatively recent, apparently quite unrelated disci- 

 pline, genetics, a new way of approach to these common problems. This too is 

 at present a field without an accepted name, although there is some reason to 

 think that the name now used by some of those who are interested in such matters 

 — biosystematics — may eventually receive a wide acceptance. 



We could explore these matters further and call attention to other ways in 

 which natural history and her lineal descendants, "bone of her bone and flesh of 

 her flesh" — if we may revert to an ancient phrase — -have contributed their share 

 to human knowledge, to the advance of biology, and to the practical affairs of 

 life. AVe have, for example, not mentioned the bearing of a knowledge of the 

 fungi which is involved in the development of what the medical man calls the 

 "antibiotics." AVe have not mentioned agriculture, which involves certain aspects 

 of ecology and which will do so more and more as the needs of the world for an in- 

 creased food supply becomes more manifest. We have not mentioned — but let it rest ! 



In the words attributed to the mother of the Gracchi in referring to her dis- 

 tinguished sons, "these are my jewels," natural history has been the Great Mother 

 of them all. 



