484 FIELD STUDY IN ORNITHOLOGY. 



compared witli the knowable, and we may trust in tlie ^Vutlior of all 

 trntli, wlio, I tliiiik, will not let that truth remain forever hidden.'" 



I have endeavored to show that there is still room for all workers, 

 that the naturalist has his i^laee, though the morphologist and the pliy- 

 siologist have rightly come into far greater prominence, and we need 

 not yet abandon the field glass and the lens for the microscope and the 

 scalpel. The studies of the laboratory still leave room for the observa- 

 tions of the field. The investigation of muscles, the analysis of brain 

 tissue, the research into the chemical properties of pigment, have not 

 rendered- worthless the study and observation of life and habits. As 

 you can not diagnose the red Indian and the Anglo-Saxon by a com- 

 parison of their respective skeletons or researches into their muscular 

 structure, but require to know the habits, the language, the modes of 

 thought of each; so the mammal, the bird, and even the invertebrate, 

 has his character, his voice, his impulses, aye, I will add, his ideas, to 

 be taken into account in order to discriminate him. There is something 

 beyond matter in life, even in its lowest forms. I may quote on this 

 the caution uttered by a predecessor of mine in this chair (Prof. Milues 

 Marshall) : " One thing above all is apparent, that embryologists must 

 not work single-handed; must not be satisfied with an acquaintance, 

 however exact, with animals from the side of development oidy; for 

 embryos have this in common with maps, that too close and too exclu- 

 sive a study of them is apt to disturb a man's reasoning power." 



The ancient Greek philosopher gives us a threefold division of the 

 intellectual faculties — ^^oovry^ic, i-iczy^irfj, (rwzni' — and I think we may 

 apply it to the subdivision of labor in natural science: (fpu-^-qat-, -q rd /.a/i^ 

 £xa(7Ta ywcof)U()u<7(x, is the power that divides, discerns, distinguishes — i. e., 

 the naturalist; ffuvsat-, the operation of the closest zoologist, who in- 

 vestigates and experiments; and en-.'^Dj/^Tj, the faculty of the philoso- 

 pher, who draws his conclusions from facts and observations. 



The older naturalists lost much from lack of the records of previous 

 observations; their difticulties were not ours, but they went to nature 

 for their teachings rather than to books. Now we find it hard to avoid 

 being smothered with the literature on the subject, and being choked 

 with the dust of libraries. The danger against which Prof. Marshall 

 warns the embryologist is not confined to him alone; the observer of 

 facts is equally exposed to it, and he must beware of the danger, else he 

 may become a mere materialist. The poetic, the imaginative, the emo- 

 tional, the spiritual, all go to make iip the man; and if one of these 

 is missing, he is incomplete. 



I can not but feel that the danger of this concentration upon one side 

 only of nature is painfully illustrated in the life of our great master, 

 Darwin. In his early days he was a lover of literature, he delighted in 

 Shakespeare and other poets; but after years of scientific activity and 

 interest, he found on taking them up again that he had not only grown 

 indifferent to them, but that they were even distasteful to him. He 



