574 



NATURE 



[Oct. 13, 1 88 1 



inorganic nature ; v hat is meant by differentiation of structure, 

 and°by the division of physiological labour exhibited by the 

 higher organisms in contradistinction to the lower. He will also 

 ha've gained ?ome conception of the all-important truth that the 

 higher organisms begin life as a simple cell, comparable to an 

 entire unicellular organism, and that, of that cell, the animal or 

 plant iiself, as well as every element of its fully-formed tissue*, 

 is a lineal descendant. And these matters will be impressed 

 upon his mind by actual verification of all the more imporlant 

 points ; so that he will, it is hoped, have begun to learn the 

 first duty of the student of .science — to take things on trust only 

 so long as he is unable to bring them to the test of ob.serva- 

 tion and experiment. 



The whole of this part of the course is a modification, adapted 

 to 1 ical requirements, of Prof. Huxley's well-known "Genera 

 Biology " course. It will be seen at once that it serves as an 

 introducion both to botany and zoology, forming a starting- 

 point from «hich lectures on both these subjects may diverge. 

 I hope to give a few lectures on structural botany on Monday 

 evenings, but the remainder of the ordinary biology course will 

 be purely zoological, dealing chiefly with animal morphology, 

 or compar.ative anatomy, as opposed to systematic zoology. It 

 is gradually being acknowleged by those most competent to 

 form an opini' m, that zoology in this latter sense is a subject of 

 no educational value whatever — I me.an as far as the beginner is 

 concerned — since it necessarily follows a course exactly the 

 opposite of that which the scientific novice should pursue. It 

 begins with generalisations, and ends with details ; it provides 

 elaborate systems of classification without giving even an ele- 

 mentary knowledge of the totality of organisation of a single 

 animal, and — what is most mischievous for the beginner — it 

 regularly ignores facts not of " classificatory importance," and 

 so tends to offer a premium on superficiality. 



The principal groups of animals will therefore be treated 

 partly by the description of "types," selected as exhibiting the 

 chief characteristics of the group, partly by the comparative 

 method— that is, by t.aking up a particular organ or set of 

 organs and tracing the modifications it presents through a series 

 of groups. The mote important fossil members of any division 

 will be considered along with the recent forms, a good deal will 

 be .'^aid of the embryology or development of the chief types, 

 and the main facts of their distribution in space and time will 

 be considered, as well as the question of classification and the 

 principles upon which it is conducted. 



Fn.m time to time the necessity will arise of discus-ing the 

 relati jns between these several divisions of the subject and the 

 explanations of them. It will be shown, for instance, that a 

 proximate explanation of the extraordinary changes undergone 

 by an animal in its development from the egg is afforded by the 

 theory that the evolution of the individual is a recapitulation — 

 much abbreviated and distorted — of the evolution of the species. 

 Or, to take another example, it will be pointed out that in the 

 doctrine of evolution we have the only satisfactory exjilanation 

 of the fact that in tracing back the history in past time of many 

 groups, the boundaries between them tend to disappear, and spe- 

 cies are found at last assignable to no existing group, but com- 

 bining in themselves the character of two or more. As a striking 

 example I may mention the recent discovery of the second known 

 specimen of the fossil called Arcluvopteryx, hitherto supposed 

 to be a true bird, although exhibiting certain approximations 

 towards reptiles. It is now known that Archa;opteryx is com- 

 pletely intermediate between reptiles and birds — that it is indeed 

 a feathered reptile ; and it cannot be doubted that we have here 

 clearly indicated the line of descent of the group of birds, at the 

 piresent day so sharply separated from all other vertebrate ani- 

 mals. In the same way the mammalia, when traced back to the 

 earlier tertiaries, are found to be represented by animals which 

 are neither marsupials nor rodents, carnivores nor herbivores, but 

 form a common group of generalised forms, from which the 

 well-marked orders of mammals as we know them to-day are 

 seen gradually to diverge as we trace the fossils from the lower 

 to the upper tertiaries. 



Whde this the greater part of the course is going on, the 

 laboratory work will consist in the dissection of one or more 

 common animals selected as types of each of the chief groups. 

 The Mollu ca, for instance, will be illustrated by the cockle or 

 mussel, the slug, and perhaps the octopus ; the great group of 

 articulated animals by the crab, sandhopper, beetle, moth, spider, 

 millepede, &c. ; the Vertebrata by some common fish, such as 

 the red cod, by a frog if it can be had, by a pigeon and a rabbit. 

 In this way the student will become familiar with the entire 



organisation of a sufficient number of animal types to enable him 

 to understand the description of other types given him in lectures 

 or in books. Further illustrations of many points of importance 

 will be afforded him by the examination of specimens from the 

 museum, notably in the case of fossils, and in that of the skele- 

 ton, which latter, apart from its purely scientific importance, 

 affords an excellent training for the faculties of observation, of 

 comparison, and of memory. Moreover, if the time holds out I 

 hope to be able to let the students see for themselves some of the 

 chief stages in the development of the common fowl — the most 

 convenient starting-point for the study of embryology. 



Lastly, from time to time short practic.1l examinations will be 

 held. Subjects will be provided differing from those already 

 seen, and the student will be encouraged to investigate their 

 structure without help, and to compare the results thus obtained 

 with those of the more form.al work. 



I think no one w ill doubt that a course of this sort must fur- 

 nish a true discipline. Whether as a discipline it is superior, 

 cateris paribus, to a classical cour.-e — to a study of the grammar 

 and construction of the Latin and Greek languages, and a certain 

 acquaintance with their literature, I must leave to the decision 

 of those who know more of the la'ter subjects than myself. 

 Certainly a consideration of the faculties the two studies are 

 likely to bring into play, train, and develop, leads one, in the 

 absence of other data, save the sad memories of one's own 

 school work, to assign a distinctly higher value to scientific than 

 to grammatical study as a mental training. But this point has 

 been so often insisted on by men whose words carry weight that 

 no remarks of mine are needed. What I consider it my busi- 

 ness to point out is the way in which a course in my own branch 

 of natural science should, and the way in which it should not, be 

 carried on, and I feel convinced that even those who have no 

 knowledge of the subject will see that the training afforded by 

 the course of which I have given a brief outline in observation, 

 in induction and deduction, in the comparative method, and in 

 the true understanding of the relations between cause and effect, 

 is not easily surpassed, to say nothing of the less important, 

 though by no means to be despised, training of the memory, and 

 of the exercise of the imagination provided by theories of molec- 

 ular structure, and their application to morphological and physio- 

 logical problems. 



As to the effect of these studies upon still higher faculties, I 

 feel that I cannot do better than quote a well-known passage 

 from a lecture of Prof. Huxley's, delivered nearly twenty-seven 

 years ago. He says: — "There is yet another way in which 

 natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon 

 practical life, and that is by its influence on the finer feelings as 

 the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is derivable 

 from beauty. I do not pretend that natural history knowledge, 

 as such, can increase our sense of the beautiful in natural objects. 

 I do not sujipose that the dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the 

 great poet of Nature says — 



" ' A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him. 

 And it was nothing more,' — 

 w ould have been a whit removed from its apathy by the infor- 

 mation that the pirimrose is a dicotyledonous exogen, with a 

 monopetalous corolla and central placentation. But I advocate 

 natural history knowledge from this point of view because it 

 would lead us to seek the beauties of natural objects instead of 

 trusting to chance to force them on our attention." 



Indeed the elevating effect of science from this point of view 

 is of quite the same nature as that of art, and with the alteration 

 of a word or two the sentence put by Browning into the mouth 

 of Fra Lippo Lippi expresses exactly the same idea as the pas- 

 sage I have just quoted : — 



" For don't you mark ? — We're made so that we love, 

 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 

 Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see ; 

 And so they are better painted — better to us. 

 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that." 

 One may even go a step further and say, with the Laureate, 

 that he who could know all about one single little flower would 

 know " what God and man is." 



I would draw attention to the fact that I have said nothing as 

 to what is often called the practical bearing of scientific instruc- 

 tion. And this purposely ; for we who have the charge of 

 higher education in the ordinary sense — as distinguished from 

 pnifessional or technical education — have nothing whatever to 

 do with so-called practical ends. Our business is, as far as in us 

 lies, to train the minds of our students — to teach them to think 

 and to learn tor themselves, knowing that whatever career they 



