28 MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



logical research is in the direction of a genealogical 

 system of classification — a system based upon, and 

 expressing, the kinship which underlies the whole or- 

 ganic world. From this standpoint, the myriad forms 

 of organisms that have arisen since the dawn of life, 

 genealogically arranged and viewed as a whole, would 

 present the branching figure of a tree. The trunk 

 and branches of this great tree, representing ancestral 

 forms, have been buried in the sand and mud of geo- 

 logic ages, and preserved only as an imperfect fossil 

 frame-work, so that we see only the terminal buds of 

 its topmost twigs in the plants and animals of to-day. 

 To trace out and reconstruct such a tree is a work of 

 magnitude, scarcely dreamed of in the philosophy of 

 cabinet naturalists. The best classification within the 

 range of present possibilities can only have a tentative 

 value. It can have not a single hour's security against 

 the invasion of newly discovered facts — an invasion 

 that is advancing along a thousand lines with plenary 

 authority to spare nothing fictitious. The goal of sys- 

 tematic botany and zoology is not then the terminus 

 of any one line of research, but rather a focal point 

 of all the biological sciences. 



Having noted the principal aim of classification, we 

 have now to glance at its position, scope, and functions. 

 The low standards followed by many systematic writers 

 have brought reproach upon this department of knowl- 

 edge ; but the reproach is certainly misplaced, and we 

 must accord to systematic biology the high position to 

 which its true aims and functions entitle it. Its first 

 business, obviously, is to ascertain what forms of life 

 now exist, and to describe, name, and catalogue them 



