280 Britain's Heritage of Science 



the most cultivated English. Both on platform and on paper 

 he was a keen controversialist. He contributed much to 

 our knowledge of morphology. But never could he have 

 been mistaken for a field-naturalist. In the latter part of 

 his life he was drawn away from pure science by the demands 

 of public duty, and he was, undoubtedly, a power in the 

 scientific world. For he was ever one of that small band 

 in England who united scientific accuracy and scientific 

 training with influence on the political and official life of 

 the country. 



As has already been said, the immediate effect of the 

 publication of " The Origin of Species " and of the acceptance 

 of its theories by a considerable and ever-increasing number 

 of experts did not lead to the progress of research along the 

 precise lines Darwin himself had followed. The accurate 

 description of bodily structure and the anatomical com- 

 parison of the various organs was the subject of one school 

 of investigators : Rolleston's " Forms of Animal Life," 

 re-edited by Hatchett Jackson, Huxley's " Vertebrate and 

 Invertebrate Zoologies," and Milnes Marshall's " Practical 

 Zoology " testify to this. Another school took up with 

 great enthusiasm the investigation of animal embryology, 

 the finest output of which was Balfour's " Text-book of 

 Embryology," published in 1880. Members of yet another 

 school devoted themselves to the minute structure of the 

 cell and to the various changes which the nucleus undergoes 

 during cell-division. Animal histology has, however, been 

 chiefly associated with physiology and, as this chapter is 

 already greatly overweighted, we have had to leave physio- 

 logy on one side. The subjects of degeneration, as shown, 

 by such forms as the sessile Tunicata, the parasitic Crustacea 

 and many internal parasitic worms, with the last of which 

 the name of Cobbold is associated, also received attention, 

 and increased interest was shown on the pathogenic influence 

 of internal parasites upon their hosts. 



Towards the end of our period, a number of new schools 

 of biological thought arose. As Judd tells us : 



" Mutationism, Mendelism, Weismannism, Neo-La- 



marckism, Biometrics with which the name of W. F. R. 



Weldon will ever be associated * Eugenics ' began to 



