10 BIOLOGY 



or ignorant choice of one factor out of a possible score to be found in 

 the uncontrolled conditions. 



In the second place, that phase of ecology which deals with what 

 are called "adaptations to environment" simply catalogues the 

 materials of experimental morphology and must be merged with 

 it. To retain it as a distinct field of work is to doom it to sterility, 

 for it can only bear fruit as it becomes an experimental subject, and 

 then it is experimental morphology. 



In the third place, experimental morphology, with its background 

 of physics and chemistry, is more closely related to physiology than 

 it is to the older phases of morphology; which leads to the conclu- 

 sion that the fundamental problems of morphology are physiological. 

 We may look at the situation from either standpoint, and say that 

 the most recent phase of morphology intrenches upon physiology, 

 or that the boundaries of physiology must be extended enough to 

 include morphology. To-day the two subjects are handicapped; 

 for morphologists are not physiologists enough to know how to 

 handle and interpret their material, and physiologists are not mor- 

 phologists enough to know the extent and significance of their 

 material. The training of the future must not differentiate these 

 two subjects still further, but must combine them for effective re- 

 sults. 



This modern tendency to cross old-established boundaries be- 

 tween subjects is evident everywhere. Physiology and chemistry 

 have long possessed common territory; plant morphology and phy- 

 siology have now found no barrier between them. This simply means 

 that so long as we deal with the most external phenomena our sub- 

 jects seem as distinct from one another as do the branches of a tree; 

 but when we approach the fundamentals we find ourselves coming 

 together, as the branches merge into the trunk. The history of botany, 

 beginning with taxonomy, has been a history that began with the 

 tips of the branches and has proceeded in converging lines towards 

 the common trunk. The fundamental unity of the whole science, 

 in fact, of biological science, however numerous the branches may 

 be, is becoming more and more conspicuous. Already the old lines 

 of classification have become confused, and one looking through 

 any recent list of papers finds it impossible to classify them in terms 

 of the old divisions. Investigators are now to be distinguished by 

 particular groups of problems in connection with particular material, 

 and all problems lead back to the same fundamental conceptions. 

 In other words, the point of view is to be common to all investigators, 

 and until it is common their results will not reach their largest sig- 

 nificance. 



A fourth consideration is the result of all this upon taxonomy. It 

 seems clear to one who was originally trained in taxonomy, and 



