THE PRESENT TENDENCIES OF MORPHOLOGY AND ITS 

 RELATIONS TO THE OTHER SCIENCES 



BY ALFRED MATHIEU GIARD 



(Translated from the French by Robert M. Yerkes, Harvard University) 



[Alfred Mathieu Giard, Professor of Zoology (Evolution), at The Sorbonne, Univer- 

 sity of Paris; Member of the French Institute, b. Valenciennes, France, August 

 8, 1846. B.L. 1864; B.S. 1869; Student at Superior Normal School, 1867-70; 

 Licenciate in Mathematical Sciences, 1869; Licenciate in Physical Sciences, 1867; 

 Licenciate in Natural Sciences, 1869; Doctor of Natural Sciences of the Faculty 

 of Sciences, Paris, 1872. Professor of Zoology of the Faculty of Sciences at Lille, 

 1873-87; Professor of Natural History of the Faculty of Medicine at Lille, 

 1876-87; Master of Conferences of Zoology at the Superior Normal School, 

 1887-89; Professor of Zoology of the Faculty of Sciences, Paris, 1890. Member 

 of Academy of Sciences; President of the Society of Biology; President of 

 the French Association for the Advancement of Science, 1905; Former Presi- 

 dent of the Entomologic Society of France; Member of Academies of Brussels, 

 St. Petersburg, Prague; Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia; Linnean 

 Society of London, etc., etc. Author and Editor of Scientific Bulletin of France 

 and Belgium; Studies from the Maritime Zoologic Station at Wimereux; Re- 

 searches on the Synascidice; Controversies upon Transformism, etc., etc.] 



ALMOST forty years ago, on the occasion of a great international 

 manifestation of human thought such as this in which we are con- 

 vened at the present moment, in his report concerning the progress 

 of physiology 1 presented to the Universal Exposition of Paris in 

 1867, the illustrious Claude Bernard tried to show that the sciences 

 should be separated into two classes: one, including astronomy 

 and the natural sciences, sciences of contemplation and observation, 

 which should tend only toward the prevision of facts; the other, 

 in which he placed physics, chemistry, and physiology, which alone, 

 he said, are the explanatory, active, and nature-conquering sciences. 



This kind of contrast established between the sciences of nature, 

 to the laws of which we submit passively, and those in which the 

 activity of man intervenes is the reiterated but considerably improved 

 expression of the opinion of the philosophers of the seventeenth 

 century, especially of Thomas Hobbes, who in his book, the Leviathan, 

 expressed it in these terms: "The Register of Knowledge of Fact 

 is called History. Whereof there be two sorts; one called Naturall 

 History ; which is the History of such Facts, or Effects of Nature, 

 as have no Dependance on Mans Will; Such as are the Histories 

 of Mctalls, Plants, Animals, Regions, and the like. The other is Civill 

 History ; which is the History of the Voluntary Actions of men in 

 Common-wealths." 



1 Claude Bernard, Rapport sur le progrcs de la Physiologic gtnerale en France 

 (1867), p. 132, and Revue des cours scientifiques (1869), p. 135 et passim. 



