NOTES ON THE CONDITION OF ZOOLOGY, FIFTY YEARS AGO 



AND TO-DAY : IN CONNECTION WITH THE GROWTH 



OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



BY E. S. MORSE. 



A MOST natural and appropriate theme for discourse on 

 this, the fiftieth anniversary of the Essex County Natural 

 History Society, would be a review of the sciences and 

 their progress during the last half century. So wonder- 

 ful and prodigious has been their growth however, that 

 neither time nor strength has permitted the preparation of 

 such a review. In lieu of this we may with propriety 

 run back to the time of the first organization of this so- 

 ciety, one of the first of its kind in the country, and con- 

 template the condition of affairs then, and the attitude 

 science presents to-day. 



At that time the burden of general discourses on zoo- 

 logical science was mainly of an apologetic nature. We 

 were invited to steal away from the perplexing cares of 

 life to quiet retreats and soothe ourselves in contemplating 

 the beauties and wonders revealed to us in the products of 

 nature's handiwork. Newton's apple, Young's soap-bub- 

 ble, and Galvani's frog, as illustrations, were always at 

 hand to show what great fields of research had been opened 

 by the observation of simple facts ; but fifty years have ren- 

 dered science such a power in the world that its study no 

 longer requires an apology. Indeed, so many and such 

 wonderful results have grown out of the most trivial be- 

 ginnings that, nowadays, a man might thoughtfully and 

 systematically study the flight of motes in the air and still 



be regarded as sane. 



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