An Introduction to a Biology 



first to offer some general observations on the relation 

 between Science and Agriculture. 



The Science of Biology has, in this department of it, 

 the department of genetics, come into very close contact 

 with the science of agriculture. If you are a pure biologist, 

 you will say that Biology has stooped down from her 

 pedestal to hold a lamp for poor little parvenu Agricultural 

 Science groping in the darkness below, to show her what 

 the laws of heredity really are. If you are a pure agricul- 

 turist, you will admit that Biology at last seems to be 

 beginning to justify her existence in so far as she seems to 

 be finding out something about the breeding of animals and 

 plants, which may possibly help the agriculturist to improve 

 his stock and his corn. The purely academic biologist is 

 apt to shudder at the thought that his pure and cloistered 

 science should be degraded by being applied to useful ends. 

 On the other hand, the rule-of-thumb breeder is apt to 

 smile contemptuously when he is told that a mere theoriser, 

 a student of biology, can tell Mm anything that he doesn't 

 know about breeding. . . . 



You will have gathered from what I have said about 

 the pure biologist and the pure agriculturist that I am not 

 going to bestow upon either of them the blessing which 

 is the expected reward of the pure. We have no use for 

 either of them. There is no question of biology stooping to 

 assist agriculture, or of agriculture condescending to make 

 use of what biology can tell it. There is no question of 

 one being higher and the other lower. They are side by 

 side. But they are very different. Agriculture is practical : 

 when the agriculturist investigates a problem of heredity 

 he does so solely with a view of improving his stock. Biology 

 is disinterested : when the biologist investigates a problem 

 of heredity he does so merely because the problem interests 

 him and because he wants to find out what is going on. 

 . . . It is just because the two are so different that they 

 can be so useful to one another. The man whose contribu- 



124 



