February 28, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



Scott, of Princeton College, IST. J. ; Vice- 

 Presidents, "W. G. Farlow, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity; C. O. Whitman, of the University of 

 Chicago ; Theodore Gill, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution ; Secretary, H. C. Bumpas, of 

 Brown University ; Treasurer, John B. 

 Smith, of Rutgers College ; Executive Com- 

 mittee, Horace Jayne, of the University of 

 Pennsylvania; William F. Ganong, of Smith 

 College. 



The business being finished, the Society 

 listened to the annual discussion, which is 

 printed below. 



At the close of the discussion, on motion 

 of Prof. Heilprin, it was voted that a com- 

 mittee of three be appointed by the Presi- 

 dent to inquire into the practicability and 

 feasibilitj' of the exploration of the Antarc- 

 tic Continent and to report at the next meet- 

 ing of the Society. The President appointed 

 Professors Heilprin, Osborn and Goodale. 

 The Society then adjourned. 



H. C. BuMPtrs, 



Secretary. 



THE FORMULATION OF THE NATURAL 



SCIENCES* 



, Formulation is the method of presenta- 

 tion of the forms of our thoughts. Our ob- 

 servations of the facts of material nature 

 are embodied in such classifications as we 

 think best express their relations, and by 

 means of these classifications expressed in 

 language, we convey to others our conclu- 

 sions in the premises. As the vehicle of 

 presentation, formulation is one of the as- 

 pects of language, which as the medium of 

 communication between men, enables them 

 to accumulate knowledge. It is highly im- 

 portant then that the system of formulation 

 should be uniform, so as to convey definite 

 meaning and preserve the truth. The vast 

 number of facts to be marshaled in orderly 



*Presidental address delivered before the Ameri- 

 can Society of Naturalists in Philadelphia, December 

 26, 1895. 



array, which constitute the natural sciences, 

 require a correspondingly complex and 

 exact formulation. The advent of the doc- 

 trine of evolution into the organic sciences 

 involves the necessity of making such re- 

 adjustments of our method of formulation 

 as may be called for. It is with reference 

 to this condition and the present action of 

 naturalists regarding it, that I address you 

 to-day. The subject may be considered 

 under the three heads of Taxonomy, Phy- 

 logeny, and Nomenclature. 



I. Taxonomy. 



Taxonomy or classification is an orderly 

 record of the structural characters of or- 

 ganic beings. The order observed is an 

 order of values of these characters. Thus 

 we have what we call specific or species 

 value, generic value, family value, and so 

 on. These values are not imaginary or 

 artificial, as some would have us believe, 

 but they are found in nature. Their recog- 

 nition by the naturalist is a matter of ex- 

 perience, and the expression of them is a 

 question of tact. Their recognition rests 

 on a knowledge of morphology, or the 

 knowledge of true identities and difl:erences 

 of the parts of which organic beings are 

 composed. The formulation of these values 

 in classification foreshadows the evolution- 

 ary explanation of their origin, and is al- 

 ways the first step necessary to the dis- 

 covery of a phylogeny. 



Taxonomy, then, is, and always has been, 

 an arranging of organic beings in the order 

 of their evolution. This accounts for the 

 independence of the values of taxonomic 

 characters, of any other test. Thus, no 

 character can be alleged to be of high value 

 because it has a physiological value, or be- 

 cause it has no physiological value. A 

 physiological character may or may ■ not 

 have a taxonomic value. The practical 

 taxonomist finds a different test of values, 

 which is this. He first endeavors to dis- 



