282 ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY x 



exactly what the words which he finds in his books 

 and hears from his teachers, mean. If he does 

 not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, 

 but he will never know much aboiit chemistry. 

 That is what every chemist will tell you, and the 

 physicist will do the same for his branch of science. 

 The great changes and improvements in physical 

 and chemical scientific education, which have taken 

 place of late, have all resulted from the combina- 

 tion of practical teaching with the reading of books 

 and with the hearing of lectures. The same thing 

 is true in Biology. Nobody will ever know any- 

 thing about Biology except in a dilettante " paper- 

 philosopher " way, who contents himself with read- 

 ing books on botany, zoology, and the like ; and 

 the reason of this is simple and easy to under- 

 stand. It is that all language is merely symbolical 

 of the things of which it treats ; the more com- 

 plicated the things, the more bare is the symbol, 

 and the more its verbal definition requires to be 

 supplemented by the information derived directly 

 from the handling, and the seeing, and the touch- 

 ing of the thing symbolised : that is really what 

 is at the bottom of the whole matter. It is plain 

 common sense, as all truth, in the long run, is only 

 common sense clarified. If you want a man to 

 be a tea merchant, you don't tell him to read books 

 about China or about tea, but you put him into 

 a tea-merchant's office where he has the handling, 

 the smelling, and the tasting of tea. Without the 



