AT THE UNIVERSITY 53 



naughty rheumatism, and swam to the spot, to 

 bring him a quantity of the plant he wanted. 

 That was my first piece of heroism, perhaps my 

 greatest." 



But in all this pleasant botanising there was 

 no serious outlook on his future profession. 

 Haeckel's father, with his official way of looking 

 at things, could not reconcile himself to scientific 

 research as an avocation. It is an old belief 

 that the way to all preoccupation with the science 

 of living things lies through medicine. One may 

 question that to-day. It was the rock on which 

 Darwin nearly came to grief. A man may be 

 a very gifted botanist, yet be quite unfitted for 

 the medical profession. One must have a real 

 vocation to become a physician, more than for 

 any other calling, or else it is a hopeless blunder. 

 The talents are divided in much the same way 

 as between the historian and the soldier. It is 

 true that the two may be united, but it is equally 

 true that very good historians have made very 

 poor soldiers. What the medical man learns in 

 his studies is, of course, always valuable. But 

 it offers no test of personal talent for scientific 

 research, nor should it be supposed that a capacity 

 of this kind would be able, by mere formal study, 

 to acquire the true qualities of a physician. We 

 must learn to appreciate the physician's calling too 

 much ever to look on it as an incidental occupation. 

 It always reminds me of the amiable notion of the 

 Philistine, that a man with a turn for poetry 

 must first take up some solid profession, and then, 



