SECTION I COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 



(Hall 2, September 24, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR JAMES P. McMrrRRicH, University of Michigan. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR WILLIAM E. RITTER, University of California. 



PROFESSOR YVES DELAGE, The Sorbonne; Member of the Institute 



of France. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR HENRY B. WARD, University of Nebraska. 



THE PLACE OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY IN GENERAL 



BIOLOGY 



BY WILLIAM EMERSON RITTER 



[William Emerson Ritter, Professor of Zoology, University of California; Director 

 of San Diego Marine Biological Laboratory, b. November 19, 1856, Columbia 

 County, Wisconsin. B.S. University of California; A.M., Ph.D., Harvard Uni- 

 versity; Post-graduate, Cooper Medical College, University of California; Har- 

 vard University; University of Liverpool; Zoological Station, Naples. Success- 

 ively Instructor, Assistant, and Associate Professor of Biology, University of 

 California, 1891-1901. Member of California Academy of Sciences; Washington 

 Academy of Sciences; National Geographical Society; American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, etc. Editor of Zoological Publications, University 

 of California. Author of numerous papers on morphology and general zoology.] 



ANY science is far along on its road of progress when it has clearly 

 defined and correlated its problems, and laid firm hold on the methods 

 by which these may be most effectively worked at. By its problems, 

 I do not mean its few largest, most nearly ultimate ones alone, but 

 as well its numerous lesser ones. And by its methods I have not 

 in mind its laboratory processes only; but as well its intellectual 

 methods, its ways of handling data, of applying principles, and 

 especially its attitudes of mind. 



Biology regarded as a science, rather than as composed of numer- 

 ous more or less closely related but still independent sciences, is 

 rather far behind the other physical sciences when looked at from 

 this point of view. Its rearward position is the inevitable conse- 

 quence of the prodigious complexity of the biological field, and of 

 the recency with which it has come into possession of its great 

 unifying generalizations; and I do not advert to its status with 

 the least suggestion of derogation from the splendor of its achieve- 

 ments, but to emphasize the wisdom of having an occasional "round- 

 up," as we Westerners would call it, like the present, from our many 

 so widely scattered grazing-grounds. The daily work of the cytologist 

 and the paleontologist, for example, are so wide apart that these 



