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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 748 



petuate a distinct scientific status for each 

 of the older subjects, without reference to 

 their cognate relations, has found expres- 

 sion in the recent attempt to organize an 

 independent society for paleontology, a 

 movement which I conceive to be unscien- 

 tific in spirit, at variance with the present 

 tendency of the times, and one which 

 should receive the prompt discouragement 

 of this and every other scientific body. 



When Huxley and Martin introduced 

 their meritorious scheme of general biology, 

 they can hardly be said to have deliberately 

 contemplated the absorption of the entire 

 science of life by either the zoologist or the 

 botanist, but, unfortunately, such was 

 really the outcome of the forces set in 

 motion by them. The relative conditions 

 of development in zoology and botany in 

 their day were such as to lead to the natural 

 conception that a course in general biology 

 must consist of a major quantity of the 

 former and a minor quantity of the latter. 

 This arose from the recognized fact that 

 the development of zoology had proceeded 

 along advanced lines for many years, while 

 botany was yet struggling with questions 

 of taxonomy, nomenclature and general 

 morphology so-called— concerning itself but 

 little with the more important aspects of 

 the subject. It was not until twenty-five 

 years ago that plant physiology, pathology, 

 paleobotany and ecology began to attract 

 attention, either as important educational 

 subjects or as departments of research 

 likely to be productive of great scientific 

 or economic results. It would have been 

 contrary to all human experience had the 

 zoologists failed to promptly seize and ex- 

 ploit the rich fields which lay before them, 

 and botanists have only themselves to thank 

 for the fact that the zoologists not only 

 appropriated their rich inheritance, but 

 delayed a recognition of their rightful 

 share until within the last decade. Grati- 

 fying as the present progress in this direc- 



tion may be, it is nevertheless far from 

 satisfactory. In many cases our best edu- 

 cational institutions show a lingering con- 

 ception that botany plays only a subor- 

 dinate part in any general biological 

 scheme, and that biology is substantially a 

 knowledge of animal life only. Professors 

 even openly advocate courses, or persist in 

 maintaining courses in general biology in 

 which this feature is given special promi- 

 nence. Among the general public highly 

 educated people commonly discuss botany 

 and biology as wholly distinct and largely 

 unrelated subjects, a point of view for 

 which we can make some allowance when 

 their leaders in science ignore first prin- 

 ciples. Such persistent, and one might 

 almost say willful, blindness to the proper 

 correlation of subjects begets a disastrous 

 confusion of ideas and intellectual sterility. 

 Witness the recent instance of a medical 

 practitioner in good standing, and only a 

 few years out of a leading medical school, 

 expounding to a public audience the prin- 

 ciples of preventive mediein"e as applied 

 to tuberculosis. His advice was good, but 

 when he left the immediate field of his own 

 profession for that of science, his statement 

 that "Bacteria are little animals about half 

 way between a spore and a seed" was far 

 from comforting to those who had fondly 

 hoped some fertile soil was to be found in 

 the ranks of the rising generation of med- 

 ical men, wherein to sow the seeds of cor- 

 rect biological principles. 



The recently exploited work of Mendel 

 and the brilliant achievements of de Vries, 

 whose results are now being utilized so 

 extensively by zoologists in elucidation of 

 hitherto obscure problems, the light thrown 

 on general biological problems by the long 

 and brilliant array of investigations in 

 plant cytology, the advances in plant path- 

 ology which have led to results of the 

 greatest economic importance and have 

 thrown a brilliant side light upon many 



