TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 619 



Section D.— ZOOLOGY. 

 President of the Section. — Professor G. C. Bourne, M.A , D.Sc, F.R.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. 

 The President delivered the following Address : — 



In choosing a subject for the address with which it is my duty, as President of 

 this Section, to trouble yon, I have found myself in no small embarrassment. 

 As one whose business it is to lecture and give instruction in the details of 

 comparative anatomy, and whose published work, quale.cv.nque sit, has been 

 indited on typical and, as men would now say, old-fashioned morphological lines, 

 I seem to stand self-condemned as a morphologist. For morphology, if I read the 

 signs of the times aright, is no longer in favour in this country, and among a 

 section of the zoological world has almost fallen into disgrace. At all events, I 

 have been very frankly assured that this is the case by a large proportion of the 

 young gentlemen whom it has been my fate to examine during the past two years ; 

 and, as this seems to be the opinion of the rising generation of English zoologists, 

 and as there are evident signs that their opinion is backed by an influential section 

 of their elders, I have thought that it might be of some interest, and perhaps of 

 some use, if I took this opportunity of offering an apology for animal morphology. 



It is a sound rule to begin with a definition of terms, so I will first try to give 

 a short answer to the question 'What is morphology? ' and, when I have given 

 a somewhat dogmatic answer, I will try to deal in the course of this address with 

 two further questions : What has morphology done for zoological science in the 

 past ? What remains for morphology to do in the future ? 



To begin with, then, what do we include under the term morphology ? I 

 must, first of all, protest against the frequent assumption that we are bound by 

 the definitions of C. F. Wolff or Goethe, or even of Haeckel, and that we may 

 not enlarge the limits of morphological study beyond those laid down by the 

 fathers of this branch of our science. We are not — at all events we should not be 

 —bound by authority, and we owe no allegiance other than what reason commends 

 to causes and principles enunciated by our predecessors, however eminent they 

 may have been. 



The term morphology, stripped of al the theoretical conceptions that have 

 clustered around it, means nothing more than the study of form, and it is 

 applicable to all branches of zoology in which the relationships of animals are 

 determined by reference to their form and structure. Morphology, therefore, 

 extends its sway not only over the comparative anatomy of adult and recent 

 animals, but also over palaeontology, comparative embryology, systematic zoology 

 and cytology, for all these branches of our science are occupied with the study of 

 form. And in treating of form they have all, since the acceptance, of the doctrine 

 of descent with modification, made use of the same guiding principle — namely, 

 that likeness of form is the index to blood-relationship. It was the introduction 

 of this principle that revolutionised the methods of morphology fifty years ago, 

 and stimulated that vast output of morphological work which some persons, 

 erroneously as I think, regard as a departure from the line of progress indicated 

 by Darwin. 



We may now ask, what has morphology done for the advancement of zoological 

 science since the publication of the ' Origin of Species ' ? We need not stop to 

 inquire what facts it has accumulated : it is sufficiently obvious that it has added 

 enormously to our stock of concrete knowledge. We have rather to ask what 

 great general principles has it established on so secure a basis that they meet 

 with universal acceptance at the hands of competent zoologists? 



It has doubtless been the object of morphology during the past half-century 

 to illustrate and confirm the Darwinian theory. How far has it been successful ? 



