president's address. 73 



and synonymy. "While on the " morphologist " honours and 

 popidar recognition are bestowed, the " systematist " is but too 

 often put aside as unscientific ; and the public, for want of knowing 

 better, are apt to imagine that the discipline of the "systematist" is 

 antiquated and of a totally different order to that of the "mor- 

 phologist." Our young men can only with difficulty be persuaded 

 to take up so-called " systematics" ; and as this estrangement exists 

 and threatens us with disaster, let us briefly consider the situation, 

 " Morphologist " «;. "Systematist." 



The modern methods of elementary instruction in Biology, so 

 largely morphological, are blamed, but for this there is insufficient 

 justification in Zoology. The attractions of the newer branches of 

 morphology — to wit, Comparative Embryology — owing to the 

 readiness with which they lend themselves to discursive treatment, 

 are unquestionably great, but I do not think the root of the matter 

 lies here. What, then, is the explanation, and what the remedy ? 



It is a strange fact that in the minds, not only of the public, but 

 of scientific men themselves, an almost mischievous confusion exists 

 concerning the limitations of the domain of Biology and of its sub- 

 sidiary departments.' This is no doubt primarily due to the fact that 

 the tei'm is used in a totally different sense by British and Continental 

 workers. We understand by " Biology " the study of all the 

 phenomena manifested by organic matter, wbether living or dead ; 

 while their term "Biologic," in being applied to the study of life 

 and of the living in action, is more nearly equivalent to our 

 "Physiology." Under the changes of time and growth, which 

 words like all other things undergo, it has become customary with. 

 English-speaking Zoologists to regard as a "morphologist" the 

 worker who deals chiefly with internal and minute structure and 

 development. " Morphology," etymologically construed, means the 

 study of form and symmetry, of likeness and unlikcness, of structural 

 similarity and dissimilarity — of phenomena which, as distinct from 

 the physiological, may be as well, if not best, dealt with in the 

 dead state. Our conceptions of the points of external difference and 

 resemblance among animals are expressed in our ordinary classificatory 

 systems; and hence the word "systematist," whose classification is 

 but a formulated expression of his conceptions of the inter- 

 relationships of the animals under his hand. There are " morpho- 

 logists," however, who construct classificatory systems, based on the 

 study of internal difference and resemblance, as an expression of their 

 conceptions of inter-relationship. The more advanced "systematists" 

 of to-day take cognizance of internal characters which, necessitate 

 dissection, as well as of external which do not ; and as the two lines 

 of study thus overlap, it becomes difficult to distinguish between "mor- 

 phologist" and "systematist." To make a long matter short, setting 

 aside jealousy and monopoly, the confusion lies in the fact that the 



' E.fj. tlie distiuction between Biology (in.stead of Zoology) and Botany, and the 

 remark " most comparative anatomists — or biologist.?, as they now call themselves." 



VOL. II. — JULY, 1896. 6 



