XIT. 



ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



A WO^^DEEFUL AI^IMAL. 



By the President, Arthur Stradling, M.R.C.S., F.Z.S. 

 Delivered at the Annual Meeiinff, 2~th Fehruarij, 1894, at Watford. 



Ladies aj^d Gentlemen", — 



I pui-pose to take as my text to-night the dictum that the 

 "proper study of mankind is man," but in a literal and more 

 prosaic sense than that intended by the poet. Indeed, the line 

 Avhich I shall pursiie is the very converse of that implied by the 

 quotation ; for, with the higher attributes of man — mental, moral, 

 intellectual, or spiritual — I shall, of course, not attempt to deal. 

 I am going to say a few words about man the animal, in relation 

 to, and in comparison and contrast with, the rest of the animal 

 world; and I have presumed to select this subject on the grounds 

 that, in the first place, my past life in the wilds has afPorded me 

 exceptionally advantageous opportunities of studying this noble 

 animal in his natural and noblest condition, so far as bodily cha- 

 racteristics go ; and secondly, because it is my lot to follow as 

 a ]U'ofession that branch of Xatural Histoiy — for it is nothing else 

 — known as medicine. 



Let me say at the outset that, although I am going to speak, 

 and to speak with intense admiration, of man viewed as an animal 

 and nothing more, I am not taking the mateiialistic platfonn too 

 commonly adopted in science nowadays, that man is an animal 

 and nothing more. It is true that the gulf between him and 

 beast is not to be found in stnicture, but is an intellectual one 

 only — and that not one of character but of degree, utterly value- 

 less for the purposes of classification. Nevertheless, that guK 

 remains so wide, so immeasurably profound, that man must 

 always occupy a place apart in creation. But of course it is 

 patent to all that we are built up on the same general plan and 

 design as the creatures which come immediately below us in the 

 scale of life; we have similar eyes, ears, tongues, similar senses 

 and coiTcsponding likes and dislikes arising out of the exercise of 

 those senses, pleasures of appetite, susceptibility to pain, and so 

 forth. And therefore it is perfectly justifiable, as it seems to me, 

 for us, as a Society avowedly devoted to the investigation of the 

 whole phenomena of Kature, to take man and study him for the 

 time being on precisely the same principle that we might a cat 

 or fi'og ; and indeed he is well worth it, for no more wonderful 



