MODERN ZOOLOGY: 
SOME OF ITS DEVELOPMENTS AND ITS 
BEARINGS ON HUMAN WELFARE. 
ADDRESS TO SECTION D (ZOOLOGY) BY 
PROFESSOR J. H. ASHWORTH, D.S8c., F.B.5., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
Zootoey has far outgrown its early boundaries when it could be defined 
simply as a part of natural history, and at no period has its growth 
been more rapid or more productive in results of scientific and ‘practical 
importance than in the interval since our last meeting in this city. 
It is however impossible, even if time permitted, for any one observer 
to survey the many lines of activity in zoology or to record its contri- 
butions to knowledge in this fruitful period. I have thought it might 
be profitable to endeavour to take in retrospective glance the broad out- 
lines of development of zoology during the last two or three decades, 
and then to limit our further consideration more especially to some of 
the relations of zoology to human welfare. The period under review 
has witnessed a growth of our knowledge of the living organism of the 
same order of importance as the progress in our knowledge of the atom. 
Never have investigators probed so deeply or with so much insight into 
the fundamental problems of the living animal; the means for observa- 
tion and recording have become more delicate, and technique of all 
kinds more perfect, so that we can perceive details of structure and 
follow manifestations of activity of the organism which escaped our 
predecessors. 
At the time cf the last Liverpool Meeting and for some few years 
previously, a distrust of the morphological method as applied to the 
study of evolution had beer expressed by a number of zoologists. At 
that meeting Professor MacBride put forward an able defence of morpho- 
logy while recognising that the morphological method had its limita- 
tions, which must be observed if the conclusions are to rest on safe 
ground. Through undue zeal of some of its devotees morphology had 
been pushed too far on arid and unproductive lines, and rash speculation 
based on unsound morphology brought discredit on this branch of our 
science. It is now fully recognised that the observed resemblances 
between animals are due, some of them to genetic relationships, and 
others to convergent evolution, and therefore that the conclusions 
drawn from the study of morphology are to be interpreted with the 
greatest circumspection. There are some groups of animals, e.g. the 
earthworms, in regard to the evolutionary history of which we can 
never hope to receive help from paleontology ; we must perforce make 
the best use we can of the morphological method applied, be it under- 
stood, with wide knowledge and deep insight. That careful systematic 
work, coupled with the skilful application of sound morphological 
was 
