604 EEPORT— 1889. 



Section D.— BIOLOGY. 



Pkksidbnt of the Section — Professor J. S. Burdon Sandeeson, M.A., M.D., 



LL.D., F.K.SS.L. & B. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 

 The Peesident delivered the following Address : — 



Elementary Prohlems in Physiology, 



It has long ceased to be possible in the com-se of an annual address in Section 

 D. to give an account even of the most important advances which have been made 

 during the preceding twelve months, in the various branches of knowledge which 

 are now included under the term Biology. One reason is that each of the bio- 

 logical subjects has acquired such vast dimensions. The other, that the two main 

 branches — Morpholog}', which strives to explain why plants and animals have 

 assumed the forms and structure which they possess, and Physiology, which seeks 

 to understand how the living organism works — have now diverged from each other 

 so widely as regards subject and method, that there seems to be danger of com- 

 plete separation of the one from the other. 



From this sundering of sciences which a generation ago were intimately united, 

 however inevitable it may be, Physiology chiefly suffers, as being even to the 

 naturalist less attractive and interesting. The study of form and structure has the 

 great advantage that it brings the observer into direct relation with objects which 

 excite his curiosity without requiring too great an effort to understand them. This 

 was the case even when Anatomy was mainly descriptive, and Zoology and Botany 

 occupied themselves chiefly with classification and with definition of species. How 

 much more is it the case now that Anatomy, Zoology, and Botany, have become 

 built into one system of which the Doctrine of Evolution is the corner stone. 

 Morphology, the name now given to this system, has, if I am not mistaken, this 

 advantage over all other subjects of scientific study — that while attractive to the 

 beginner, it is perfectly satisfactory to the mature student. It derives its perfect- 

 ness from its subject — the order of the plant and animal world. For inasmuch as 

 its fundamental conception is the development of all organisms, however complicated, 

 from elementary forms, and as the theoretical development of the plant and animal 

 world (in other words the science of morphology), claims to be nothing more than 

 a synthesis of the observed facts of its actual development, the science is co-ordinate 

 and conterminous with living nature and strives after a perfection which is that 

 of nature itself. 



Physiology is without this source of attractiveness. Its first lessons present 

 difficulties to the beginner which, unless he is contented (as indeed ordinary 

 students are) to accept as true what he does not understand, are, to say the least, 

 discouraging; while to the more mature student who has mastered more or less 

 some part of the subject, it fails to present a system of knowledge of which all 

 the parts are interdependent and can be referred to one fundamental principle, 

 comparable to that of development or evolution. 



It is easy to understand that this must be so if we consider the present position 



