590.1 2o 



II. 



The Position of Morphology in Zoological 



Science/ 



A PAPER which proposed to insist on the cardinal value of morpho- 

 logy in the science of zoology, would have been held some years ago 

 to be an entirely superfluous statement of a universally recognised 

 truth. It cannot, however, be denied that there has been growing up 

 amongst zoologists in the past ten years a feeling of dissatisfaction 

 with morphological methods, and a tendency to disparage altogether 

 morphology as a means of research. This feeling finds expression, 

 for instance, in Ray Lankester's article on Zoology in the " Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica," where we read that "pure morphography has long 

 since ceased to be a principal line of research," and that the attention 

 of young students should not be confined to " what are now, com- 

 paratively speaking, the less productive lines of research." In 

 Bateson's " Materials for the Study of Variation " we meet the broad 

 statement that the morphological method has failed. Driesch and 

 others who work on the same lines estimate the value of morphology 

 at a very low figure. 



I propose in the present essay to examine briefly the rival 

 methods which have been put forward as demanding chief attention 

 from zoologists, and shall show that all of them, valuable as they 

 undoubtedly are, suffer from defects from which morphology is 

 free. I shall further inquire to what causes the feeling of discontent 

 with morphological methods is due, and finally I shall tentatively 

 indicate certain ways of dealing with morphological facts which seem 

 to me likely to be free from the objections which have been raised 

 to other methods, and promise to throw fresh light on the general 

 problems of zoology. 



The lines of research which have been put forward as being more 

 important than morphological investigations and comparisons, are 

 mainly three, viz., Experimental Embryology, Study of Individual 

 Variations, and Statistical Studies in Variation, or Mathematical 

 Zoology. All are avowedly attempts to solve one of the chief pro- 

 blems of zoology, viz., the nature and causes of animal change or 

 variation. Experimental embryology founded by Roux and carried on 

 with such success by Driesch, Hertwig, and Loeb, has for its aim the 

 isolation of the various processes the conjoint working of which con- 



1 Paper read before Section D of the British Association, September 22, 1S96. 



