March 13, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



381 



responds with the one expressed in the 

 foregoing. I take the liberty of quoting: 



I should say that the elementary course or 

 courses in botany should always be synthetic. 

 Fundamental in the synthetic presentation of bot- 

 any I should say is morphology, for I do not be- 

 lieve that any effective work can be done without 

 some knowledge of the structures involved. Then 

 I should say that the morphological thread that 

 runs through the course should string together the 

 most important physiological phenomena as ex- 

 planations of morphological structure. In fact, I 

 would not regard any morphology as significant 

 that could not be explained in terms of physiology; 

 and on the contrary, I would not regard any physi- 

 ology as worth while that could not be fitted into 

 morphological structure. In other words, I can not 

 divorce the machine from its work. Naturally in 

 this statement ecology becomes merely a form of 

 physiology. This would be my general notion as to 

 the content of an elementary course in botany. 



What should be given afterwards depends en- 

 tirely upon the size of the botanical staff and its 

 differentiation in interest. After the synthetic 

 course, I think there should be opportunity to de- 

 velop morphology, physiology, ecology, etc., inde- 

 pendently. Of course, experimental morphology 

 should come in as a hybrid between morphology 

 and physiology. I should say that genetics would 

 come after almost everything else. 



M. A. Chrysler 



UNrvEBSiTY OP Maine, 

 Orono, Me. 



EXPEBIMENTALISM IN ZOOLOGY 

 The followers of science have shown at 

 all times a marked disposition to readjust 

 the style of their intellectual apparel to 

 new conditions, and in this respect the 

 zoologist is no exception. There are some 

 among us who still prefer to appear in the 

 ancient and respectable mental garb of the 

 systematist, others who adorn themselves 

 in the Empire costume of the comparative 

 anatomist, and still others who have put 

 on the Victorian attire of the embryologist. 

 But he who wishes to be truly modern is 

 content to clothe himself in only the scanty 

 raiment of the experimentalist. A glance 



at this last class shows it to be made up of 

 the young and the would-be-young. This 

 latest style, unlike its predecessors, is not 

 a creation from Paris or from London, but 

 is largely a home-product, the result of 

 what its inceptors would call internal fac- 

 tors, those conveniently vague things about 

 which we know so little. Although we are 

 not wholly clear as to the process by which 

 we have come to be experimentalists, we 

 are convinced that it depended upon some- 

 thing like an irreversible reaction and that 

 we have come to stay. 



The experiment, however, is by no means 

 a modern invention. As early as the thir- 

 teenth century Roger Bacon was proclaim- 

 ing to unsympathetic scholars its soundness 

 as an instrument for the discovery of truth. 

 In his opus majus he maintains that 



There are two modes of knowing; by argument 

 and by experiment. Argument concludes a ques- 

 tion; but it does not make us feel certain, or ac- 

 quiesce in the contemplation of truth, except the 

 truth be also found to be so by experience. 



And still farther on in the same work he 

 declares that 



Experimental science, the sole mistress of specu- 

 lative sciences, has three great prerogatives among 

 other parts of knowledge: First, she tests by ex- 

 periment the noblest conclusions of all other sci- 

 ences; next, she discovers respecting the notions 

 which other sciences deal with, magnificent truths 

 to which these sciences themselves can by no means 

 attain; her third dignity is, that she by her own 

 power and without respect of other sciences, in- 

 vestigates the secrets of nature. 



Although Roger Bacon's utterances in 

 favor of experimental science were made 

 over three centuries before the days of his 

 illustrious fellow countryman, Francis 

 Bacon, and at a time when such utterances 

 were dangerous, they were by no means the 

 earliest expression of the experiment. 

 Some sixteen centuries before Roger Ba- 

 con's time, Aristotle wrote in simple lan- 

 guage an account of what is probably the 



