Sir David Prain 75 



Economic Biology has reason to know that the interdependence of 

 Natural History and Academic Science is equally marked. Oecology, 

 whose results we apply to everyday affairs, has shown us that diversity 

 of purpose is no barrier to community of interest. Economic Biology 

 reahses, even if Academic Science and Natural History do not, that the 

 field- naturahst cannot escape being an Oecologist, and that the Oeco- 

 logist is a Natural Historian in spite of himself. 



Notwithstanding the suspicions she has aroused, Morphology is the 

 special study that, perhaps unwittingly, does most to harmonise the 

 divers activities of Natural History, Economic Biology and Academic 

 Science. Cytology, which regards herself as a self-contained study, is 

 nevertheless a branch of Morphology which plays a part in assisting all 

 three. Natural History relies on Cytology for the philosophical know- 

 ledge on which her most fundamental systematic conceptions are based. 

 Vegetable Technology is equally beholden to Cytology for information 

 which enables industrial interests to overcome practical difficulties. 

 Cytology deserves the credit of despising an antiquated opprobrium 

 which Academic Science is prone to dread. No study can be so " learned " ; 

 the Cytologist assures us that explanations of natural effects offered by 

 Natural History, Academic Science or Economic Biology can only be 

 accepted when confirmed by cytological methods. No study has been 

 more "curious"; Cytology not only explains what the structures con- 

 nected with nutritive and reproductive functions do, but ventures to 

 tell us how they act. 



A generation ago both history and economy were inchned to regard 

 natural knowledge of the characters and virtues of organised things 

 and natural knowledge of organic structure and function as being 

 different in kind. A corollary was the tendency to narrow the incidence 

 of the term Economic Biology to studies connected with the application 

 of functional and structural knowledge. This tendency has disappeared 

 with the idea that underlay it. Even Academic Science, under the con- 

 soUdating stress of conflict, so far discarded prepossession as to vie with 

 Natural History and Economic Biology in devoting her energies to the 

 task of applying natural knowledge at first hand. 



This happy concurrence of the agencies concerned with, the im- 

 provement of natural knowledge restored a philosophical conception, 

 evolved two and a half centuries ago and kept ahve by Natural History, 

 through good report and ill, ever since. It also restored the practical 

 attitude towards Economic Biology adopted by early man. He was 

 sufficiently interested, from primitive times, in the effects of organic 



