THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY. ig 



the science. we name "Morphology" gives us an answer. This depart- 

 ment of biology concerns itself with structure alone. Under this head 

 we gain a complete knowledge of the mechanism of the living being. A 

 watchmaker, taking a watch or clock to pieces to ascertain the struc- 

 ture of the timepiece, investigates its " morphology." An engineer, 

 describing to a bystander the principles of the mechanism he has 

 constructed, is similarly detailing its morphological composition. 

 The structure and build of the living body animal or plant, high or 

 low organism, be it remembered is investigated under this first 

 head of inquiry. It is morphology which places before us the few 

 facts of structure perceptible in the animalcule ; and it is this science, 

 in its highest development, which investigates the complexities of the 

 human organisation itself. 



But "morphology" can readily be shown to possess a subdivision 

 into three important branches, each dealing with a special phase of 

 living structure. There exists, firstly, the subdivision Anatomy^ 

 which deals with the structure of the fully developed (or adult) animal 

 or plant. Next in order comes Development a study all-important, 

 as we shall hereafter see, in the eyes of modern biologists. Through 

 development we obtain a knowledge of the manner in which the 

 adult body, which " anatomy " investigates, came to assume its perfect 

 and completed form. Development, in short, initiates us into 

 Nature's manufactories, and shows us her methods of evolving living 

 organisms. Just as even a rapid run through a watch-manufactory, 

 and a glance at this table and that, or a look at the various stages in 

 the progress of the watch towards perfection, would afford an idea 

 of the fashioning and forming of the watch, so development gives 

 us an insight into the process and method employed and followed in 

 the formation of the animal or plant. The pin or pen we think so little 

 of, came to be what it is through a highly complex process of manufac- 

 ture. To thoroughly know what the pin or the pen />, we should 

 naturally require a knowledge of how it was made. Just so in 

 nature j development teaches us how the animal and the plant is 

 made nay, more, it tells us also, by the way, a wondrous tale 

 respecting the causes of the manufacture, and the circumstances 

 which have led Nature to frame her living possessions according to 

 one fashion or another, and to relate, it may be, apparently diverse 

 articles of her handiwork in the closest bond of intimacy and union. 

 Last of all, a third department of morphology, or the science of 

 structure, exists in the shape of Taxonomy or Classification. It is 

 the plainest of truisms, that we can only classify and arrange any set 

 of objects truly and satisfactorily when we really know the objects, 

 and when we possess a perfect acquaintance with their structure. 

 Hence " classification " falls into a most natural place when, after the 

 acquirement of knowledge concerning the structure and nature of 



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