84 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



mais and plants of the world. This was contributed to by the circumstances that 

 systematics lends itself nicely to the gratification of that instinct for collecting 

 which is so deeply embedded in our minds. What collector of postage stamps has 

 never dreamed of possessing a complete collection of all the postage stamps that 

 have ever been issued ? Or, if the impossibility of achieving this goal is too evi- 

 dent, has not relished at least the possibility of obtaining a complete collection of 

 those stamps within the specialized field to which he restricts himself? 



So this cult of finding and naming all the kinds of plants and animals of 

 the world and of squirreling them away in collections drifted away from any 

 special thought about the bearing of these activities upon biology. It drifted 

 away from the desire to know anything much about these subjects of its interests. 

 In the desire to possess collections it became concerned primarily with the col- 

 lections themselves and their possession and in so doing it became at least as 

 detached from biology as the collecting of postage stamps is detached from the 

 primary functions of the Post Office Department. It became a subject that could 

 be engaged in without previous training by children, retired army officers, police- 

 men, janitors, street-sweepers, preachers, medical men, and perhaps even poli- 

 ticians. Some of the objects of its interest became objects of commercial enter- 

 prise. One could purchase a collection of butterflies or beetles or shells as one 

 can purchase a collection of stamps and there are instances on record of insects 

 having been described merely in order to increase the list of collectors' desiderata. 

 And yet even this expression of the collector's passion was not without its 

 influence upon the development of natural history for, through it, men came to 

 know something of and to appreciate the richness and the variety of life. Inci- 

 dental this may in part have been, yet the indirectly beneficial result is clear. 

 Linnaeus, the patron saint of biological systematists, knew less than ten thousand 

 kinds of animals for the whole world. Today we know — or it may be more truthful 

 to say know of — something up toward one million and we have reason to suspect 

 the existence of as many as perhaps ten million kinds of animals alone, not to 

 mention the kinds of plants. 



Reflect for a moment! A biology based upon the existence of but ten thousand 

 kinds of animals in the world would be on a very different philosophical basis 

 from a biology based upon a concept that allows for the existence of ten million 

 kinds. With only ten thousand kinds in the world one could almost accept the 

 literal truth of the story of the Ark! With only ten thousand species of animals 

 in the world one would not be confronted with the necessity of examining the 

 multiplicity of physiological processes and phenomena that we know to exist. 

 With only ten thousand species of animals in the world the concept of a special 

 creation for each might well be acceptable. In other words, the idea of evolution 

 is necessary because this multiplicity of forms demands it and makes it the only 

 idea that the reason of a scientist can accept as offering any basis for some 

 final understanding of the facts. 



But after all, not all systematic biology has been entirely motivated or lim- 

 ited strictly by the mere gratification of the collector's instinct. After all, men 

 had to go out into the world to collect these animals and in doing so they became 

 at least to some degree acquainted with their ways of life. And so a knowledge 

 of the occurrence and the habits of animals and plants grew up along with — 

 possibly to some degree merely as a by-product of — this search for new species. 



