D.—ZOOLOGY. 123 
to convinced public opinion. Nor are there wanting those who look to the 
development of physical science, alone or in the main, as the lodestar 
of modern civilisation. They may point out that even in those industries, 
such as animal and plant husbandry, that are most biological in character, 
the subject-matter so far as it is biological is dealt with in an empirical 
way, untouched by modern biological principles. The selection of new 
varieties, and the whole process of animal breeding in the world of racing 
and agriculture, is a cult now as always entirely cut off by science, but 
possessing the vigour and initiative that physiological isolation confers. The 
real ecologists are those—the fishermen, hunters, trappers—whose wonder- 
ful empirical knowledge and nomenclature contains more than can be 
reduced to the dimensions of that bed of Procrustes, our formal science of 
animal life. The advocate of physical dominance might even go further, 
and suggest that just in as far as modern civilisation had spread, to that 
extent had biological interests receded; that the world of biological 
evolution, the natural faunas and floras of the unmastered spaces, were 
bound to succumb to the dominance of civilisation ; and that unless the 
biologists take heed, their very material for study will be reduced from 
the irreplaceable and almost infinitely rich variety of the wild, to the 
monotony of the house fly and house sparrow, and biology will become a 
mere ancilla to medicine and gardening. 
The advocatus diaboli has put forth his pleadings. How is the counsel 
for the defence to state his side ? He can point to the need for taking the 
long view. Heis convinced that man as man, and not as a temporary phase 
in an unstable scheme of things, is a biological creation ; that as part of his 
invincible faith in evolution, the study of the products of evolution will 
throw light on man’s body, mind, and destiny. But just as dominance and 
freedom from dominance are creative but correlative, so the over-mastery 
of a dominant scheme, the tyranny of organisation may lead, after a period 
of effective differentiation to a slowing down of the national spirit. The 
reaction, the return to individualism, the principle of isolation as I have 
called it, is the natural result. The problems of social philosophy, even the 
problems of government and civil life—biology in the Greek sense—are 
illuminated by the principles of zoology, and if the flame is at present 
flickering, weak, with little pressure behind it, there are those in this and 
other countries who have faith in its future brightness. This light shining 
strongly inthe west, is arising star. The astronomer will be satisfied to take 
his pleasure in its understanding, but it will also pilot the way for those who 
in many countries have long wanted a lamp to their feet and a light to 
their path. 
