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later time, scientific work has so far passed the stage of infancy 

 that some idea can be formed concerning what it is likely to 

 develop into. 



Now, if a successful attempt is to be made to express in w<3rds 

 the ultimate issue of studies in Natural History, it is clear, I 

 think, that the mind must be prepared to look upon much that at 

 present seems to be a goal as merely an initiatory stage. The 

 conchisions towards which scientific workers are now struggling 

 will, when they are reached, become mere premises to other con- 

 clusions, which perhaps again may have to become premises before 

 Natural History can be strictly entitled to the name "science." 



We in this generation are taking some of the earlier stejjs 

 towards makiny it a science. 1 should suggest as an expression 

 of what at present seems likely to be the ultimate aim of natural- 

 ists — -the statement that their aim is to find out the reasons of 

 the facts of nature. That is a subject that we know scarcely 

 anything about. We can hardly be said to have discovered the 

 meaning of even one or two of the signs on the hieroglyj)hic scroll 

 of life w^hich may serve as a beginning — by means of which we 

 might attempt the task of deciphering the rest. For example, 

 it certainly cannot be affirmed that the purpose of all the organs 

 of the body in all animals is satisfactorily ascertained. Such a 

 matter as that must be quite elementary in the enquiry I have 

 spoken of, and ignorance or doubt concerning it must absolutely 

 bar the path to the elucidation of more complex problems. 



The imagination can delight itself in a world of infinitely inter- 

 esting speculation if it enter upon the consideration of what will 

 be some of those more complex problems that our descendants 

 will, sooner or later, no doubt be in a position to approach. 

 Take, for example, the question, " What are the reasons of the 

 geographical distribution of species ? " When one ponders the 

 marvels of that distribution — how some one characteristic, 

 perhaps a slight (and what seems to us to-day a curious, unac- 

 Gountahle) one, appears, and is persistent, or at least frequent, 

 through a long series of species in a particular locality — as, for 

 example, the tendency (in the Australian Coleoptera) to the dis- 

 appearance of one or both claws of the tarsi ; or, again, when 

 one notices how certain types (of which StigDiodera is an example 

 in Australia — where there are nearly .300 known species) seem 

 to run riot, both in respect of fecundity and development, while 

 others (apparently no less truly indigenous to the country) remain 

 much less plentiful, and much less prolific in development (of 

 which many examples might be cited — for the sake of an instance 

 I will mention the remarkable Phytophagoits beetle which Professor 

 Westwood some 40 years ago named Dipliyllocera, and of which 

 there has only since been found one near ally on the Continent) ; 



Y 



