326 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 



to hold in biology, without turning an eye searchingly to the past. 

 If this be done, one's general conclusions cannot escape being 

 largely influenced by what he finds there. When it is found, for 

 example, how many of the largest, most securely established dis- 

 coveries and generalizations in biology have been reached through 

 comparative anatomy primarily, the general notion becomes strong 

 that the subsidiary science, that in the past has contributed so 

 largely to progress, will continue to be potent in the future. The 

 presumption, at least, this way is strong. It is not my office to 

 review history here, but a few instances will be allowable as giving 

 cogency to the present point. The discovery of the circulation of 

 the blood is usually and justly regarded as a physiological one; yet 

 it is noteworthy that, although Harvey made abundant use of both 

 the experimental and the quantitative methods of research, he still 

 almost always speaks of himself as an anatomist; and the great 

 store he placed on comparative studies is well known. "Had anat- 

 omists only been as conversant with the dissection of the lower 

 animals as they are with that of the human body," he says, "the 

 matters that have hitherto kept them in a perplexity of doubt 

 would, in my opinion, have freed them from every kind of diffi- 

 culty." And the thoroughgoing way in which his practice accorded 

 with his theory, both in his studies on the circulation and on gener- 

 ation, is \vell known to all familiar with his work. 



To Malpighi more than to any earlier biologist belongs the honor 

 of having recognized some of the fundamentally unifying phe- 

 nomena and principles of the living world as a whole. This he did, 

 more than in any other way, through his comparative researches 

 on plants and animals, particularly on marine animals, during the 

 years of his incumbency of a chair of medicine in the University 

 of Messina. 



The true interpretation of fossils, begun by the Dane, Nicholas 

 Stensen, a man remarkable, even in a period so remarkable as that 

 of the mid-seventeenth century, and carried to such brilliant frui- 

 tion by Cuvier, was, you will recall, strictly a matter of application 

 of the data and principles of comparative anatomy. So one might 

 go on almost indefinitely, instancing epochal advances largely 

 contributed to by comparative anatomy, in aspects of biology not 

 themselves usually counted as belonging to anatomy at all. 



The first point of significance of comparative anatomy for bio- 

 logy I am going to notice is that of its value as a discipline, or, more 

 strictly for my present aim, as furnishing a point of view. Be it 

 noted that the biological habit of mind, or point of view, whatever 

 be the phrase that best expresses it, is, as all will agree, essential 

 to healthy enthusiasm and sound accomplishment in biological re- 

 search; and that this must come through training in and the cul- 



