44 o / ARTHUR THOMSON [tone 



question — What is this ? — is pre-eminently a discipline which tends 

 to save us from having moles' lenses. 



But, to be quite frank, there are few who are able to acquire the 

 power of precise vision except within a restricted range ; and even 

 within a limited circumference the discipline is not easy. Many can 

 sympathise with one who studied under Louis Agassiz, and relates 

 that she was almost brought to despair by the way in which the 

 master, having given her a specimen, came day after day, and asked 

 her with a severe kindliness, " Well, what do you see now ? " But at 

 length she saw something — saw what was to be seen. 



Those who have a strong interest in the life of animals as it is 

 lived in nature are often keen and precise observers, but it is not 

 always so, and the field naturalist often loses both satisfaction and 

 effectiveness by failing to appreciate the depth of the question, " What 

 is this ? " It is idle to theorise about flowers and insects unless one 

 is prepared to make observations in regard to particular flowers and 

 particular insects — which raises the problem of species-identification. 

 It is absurd to suppose that a precise terminology, which no one 

 complains of on board a yacht, will not be even more necessary in the 

 complex system of nature. It simply will not do to see the bird 

 merely as " a drift of the air brought into form by plumes " ; one must 

 see it — see it really — as Kipling sees the locomotive or the steamship, 

 and grasp something of its essence by a full knowledge of its 

 anatomical inwardness. Cuvier discouraged, but eventually saved a 

 student, who thought he had made a new discovery, by asking him if 

 he had ever dissected an insect, and by bidding him do so. 



In short, all experience goes to show that there can be no sound 

 natural history without the anatomical, morphological, precisely 

 analytic discipline which gives a partial answer to the question — 

 " What is this ? " The greatest of naturalists was a classifier and 

 anatomist of the barnacles. On the other hand, I wish to suggest 

 that we need the note of natural history to give interest and sanity 

 to our morphology. What is the justification of the enormous amount 

 of energy expended every year in adding to the mass of results 

 reached by morphological analysis, and in mastering some small 

 fraction of it for oneself ? No one can pretend to have even a 

 literary acquaintance with the whole vast volume of morphological 

 facts. That is more impossible than it is for a man to know, or even 

 to have seen, the whole of London. What we wish rather is to be 

 able to read the volume, to find our way about, as it were, and to 

 be able to add to the volume too when occasion demands. It is 

 difficult to see any justification for merely adding to the volume 

 aimlessly ; there seems rather every reason to abstain from so doing. 

 What we want is certainly not an encyclopaedic morphological know- 

 ledge. That is impossible without too great a sacrifice. We seek 

 rather a general understanding of the chief styles and laws of 



