Decembeb 4, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



785 



have been an extension and elaboration of 

 his work, whether in the same field or in 

 newer ones recently opened. His philo- 

 sophical mind left its impress upon their 

 ways of thought in whatever part of 

 zoology they labored. The old problems 

 of heredity are now attacked by new 

 methods, but some of the foremost investi- 

 gators are bound to Professor Brooks, more 

 or less intimately, by nurture got when 

 he was a stimulating if not also a forma- 

 tive part of their environment. Thus 

 William Bateson, the present leader in 

 studies of variation and heredity, coming 

 to the Chesapeake laboratory to continue 

 embryological studies on Balanoglossus 

 and the origin of the vertebrates, first 

 heard the problems of heredity, from 

 Brooks, in long and intimate discussion 

 and exposition. 



Professor Brooks's religious beliefs re- 

 main unknown to me but the view-point of 

 his intellect may be inferred from the 

 following extracts from the "Foundations 

 of Zoology": 



If any believe they have evidence of a power 

 outside nature to vchich both its origin and its 

 maintenance from day to day are due, physical 

 science tells them nothing inconsistent with this 

 belief. If failure to find any sustaining virtue in 

 matter and motion is evidence of an external 

 sustaining power, physical science affords this 

 evidence; but no one who admits this can hope to 

 escape calumny; although it seems clear that the 

 man of science is right, . . . for refusing to admit 

 that he knows the laws of physical nature in any 

 way except as observed order. 



Many will, no doubt, receive with incredulity 

 the assertion that the ultimate establishment of 

 mechanical conceptions of life has no bearing, 

 either positively or negatively, upon the validity 

 of such beliefs as the doctrine of immortality, for 

 example. The opinion that life may be deducible 

 from the properties of protoplasm has, by almost 

 universal consent, been held to involve the admis- 

 sion that the destruction of the living organism 

 is, of necessity, the annihilation of life. Yet it 

 seems clear that this deduction is utterly baseless 

 and unscientifie; ... if it be admitted that we 



find in nature no reason why events should occur 

 together except the fact that they do, is it not 

 clear that we can give no reason why life and 

 protoplasm should be associated except the fact 

 that they are? And is it not equally clear that 

 this is no reason why they may not exist sepa- 

 rately ? 



Those who were with him during long 

 periods of work continued despite illness 

 know his control, those few who saw him 

 seized with bitter pain know his fortitude. 



Beneath his passive exterior much went 

 on that rarely came to the surface and he 

 had strong antipathies and emotions held 

 in check by a strong will and philosophical 

 balance. That he could take risks will be 

 recalled by those whom he, as licensed pilot, 

 brought safely into harbor, though the keel 

 of the schooner scraped the bar in the 

 trough of the heavy ground swell. 



His stern sense of duty drove him to 

 many tasks he neither liked nor felt he had 

 the natm'al bent for. His conscientious- 

 ness and punctilious regard for justice and 

 honesty brought him into antagonism with 

 many customs and with persons of less 

 sharply defined honesty. 



In many excellencies he was a child to 

 whom wisdom of experience had come; his 

 spirit retained the simplicity of the child 

 and a child's interest in the outer world 

 as something apart from self, and did not 

 readily acquire the conventional content 

 with mere getting and eating. 



Many have warm hearts for the clear 

 teacher and wise friend who lived much on 

 a higher plane of work and thought, above 

 many petty considerations of immediate ex- 

 pediency. His faults but add to the charm 

 of that large, luminous picture of virtues 

 that the recollection of him calls up in our 

 minds. 



Who again will teach us, as Brooks did, 

 that 



The hardest of intellectual virtues is philosophic 

 doubt, and the mental vice to which we are most 

 prone is our tendency to assume that lack of 



