ON BIOLOGY. 63 



spectacles to the more peaceful side of society that can 

 hardly be designated as pleasurable or beneficial ones in 

 Nature's drama. 



Yet, in face of all this, science has emphasized what 

 must be patent to any thinking mind, and that is, apart 

 from the similarity of his anatomical structure as com- 

 pared with other mammals there is at least one thing 

 that widely separates man from all else in living Nature. 

 But its teachings are also to be found in one of the vol- 

 umes devoted to biology, viz., in the science of psychol- 

 ogy. From the psychical point of view the vast abyss 

 that separates man from all the rest of living creation is 

 so wide and so profound that there can be but little dan- 

 ger in overestimating either its width or its profundity. 

 Speaking of this aspect of the question it has been said 

 that: "Man must be set off not only against the animal 

 kingdom but against the whole of Nature besides, are an 

 equivalent: Nature the book the revelation and man 

 the interpreter." 



"So in the history of the earth; from one point of view 

 the era of man is not equivalent to an era, nor to an 

 age, not to a period, nor even to an epoch. But from an- 

 other point of view it is the equivalent of the whole 

 geological history of the earth besides. For the history 

 of the earth finds its consummation, and its interpreter, 

 and its significance in man." (Leconte.) 



Not to weary you, I should like to adduce another es- 

 ample wherein the value of biological study has been 

 most abundantly proved within a comparatively short 

 space of time. It is perfectly safe to say that within the 

 last half century the entire theory of agriculture has 

 been completely revolutionized. From the crudest no- 

 tions and ideas, as they were put into practice by the 

 tillers of the soil both in this country and in Europe 

 during the early part of the present century, agri- 

 culture has grown to occupy a place among the sciences. 

 This has come about through the marvelous advances 

 made incur knowledge of physiological botany; in the 

 pathology and morphology of plants generally, and the 

 principles applied to those cultivated by the agricultur- 

 ist. To the vast store of facts that have been discovered 

 bearing upon general entomology, and in particular to 

 the study of the life histories of that enormous host of 

 species of insects which are either beneficial or injurious 

 to garden vegetables, fruit trees, grains, cultivated shrubs 

 and the like. In similar directions even knowledge of 

 another kind is coming into play, and our own Depart- 



