TRANSACTIONS OV SECTION D. 199 



Section D. —ZOOLOGY. 

 Pbesident of the Section: F. A. Dixey. M.A. M.D. F.R.S. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



One of the results of the great war now happily at an end has been its effect 

 upon science. On the one hand it has checked the progress of scientific investi- 

 gation ; it has done much to destroy international co-operation and sympathy ; 

 it has removed from our ranks, temporarily or permanently, many admirable 

 workers. On the other hand it has acted as a great stimulus in many depart- 

 ments of scientific inquiry, and it has given the general public an interest in many 

 scientific questions which have hitherto met with little recognition or encourage- 

 ment from the people at large. It was perhaps inevitable, but at the same time, 

 as I venture to think, rather to be deplored, that that interest has tended to 

 concentrate itself upon applied more than upon abstract science ; that it has been 

 concerned chiefly with the employment of natural knowledge in devising and 

 perfecting new methods of destruction. Terrible as is the power which the 

 present-day engines of warfare have attained, it may be reasonable to hope that 

 some compensation for the mischief and suffering which they have caused may 

 eventually be found in peaceful directions; that the submarine, the air-craft, 

 and even the high explosive may cease to be a terror to civilisation, and in spite 

 of their past history may after all become agents in the advancement of the 

 general welfare : 



Hoc paces habuere bonae, Tontique secundi, 



will, let us hope, be a legitimate reflection in later times. But for the true 

 scientific worker, I think I may safely assert, the primary object of his studies 

 is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake : applications of such knowledge 

 may be trusted to follow ; some beneficial, some perhaps the reverse. Still, 

 whether they do or do not so follow is less a concern of the scientific man than 

 whether his labours have resulted in a fresh advance into the realms of the 

 unknown. I confess to some sympathy with the feeling which is said to be 

 expressed in the regular toast of a certain scientific gathering : — ' Pure mathe- 

 matics, and may they never be of any use to anybody.' 



For genuine enthusiasm in the cause of science for its own sake, I think 

 that we zoologists may claim a good record. We are by no means unmindful 

 of the great benefits to humanity which have taken their rise more or less 

 directly from zoological science. I need do no more than mention the services 

 to medicine, great at the present and destined to be greater still in the future, 

 that are being rendered by the protozoologist and the entomologist. We may 

 look forward also to results of the highest practical importance from the investi- 

 gations into the laws of heredity in which we are engaged with the co-operation 

 of our allies the botanists. But what we are entitled to protest against is the 

 temper of mind which values science only for the material benefits that may be 

 got from it ; and what above all we should like to see is a greater respect on 

 the part of the public for science purely as science, a higher appreciation of the 



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