August 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



209 



the wolf howls or the quaver of the owl's 

 hoot. We no longer expect our acquaint- 

 ances to imitate the transformations of the 

 companions of Ulysses in the palace of 

 Circe, no matter how appropriate such 

 transformations might be. No longer do 

 we expect to see birds and beasts produced 

 in the fruits of trees or from decayed wood 

 washed by the sea ; nor do we think that 

 bees and other insects are generated by 

 decomposing flesh. We know that no liv- 

 ing thing exists without having received its 

 life from a living parent like itself. Our 

 path is no longer beset with hippogriff, 

 basilisk or dragon, and our high hopes and 

 noble aspirations are no longer at the 

 mercy of fairies and genii. Living beings, 

 as well as lifeless matter, are subject to law- 

 ' Thus far and no farther,' applies to them 

 as to the waves of the sea or the rush of a 

 comet. The fairies are fled, the genii ban- 

 ished, the mermaid and the remora are 

 captured, classified and harmlessly repose 

 as objects of curiosity or instruction in the 

 great museums. Zoological truth has freed 

 us from their slavery. 



Now that freedom has come how shall 

 this subject be made an efficient means of 

 mental culture, and what will its fruit be ? 

 In the first place, as for the subjects, the 

 discussion of which has preceded this, 

 Nature herself must be interrogated. The 

 successful student of zoology, to quote 

 again the trenchant words of Huxley, " ab- 

 solutely refuses to acknowledge authority as 

 such. For him, scepticism is the highest of 

 duties, blind faith the one unpardonable 

 sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every 

 great advance in natural knowledge has in- 

 volved the absolute rejection of authority, 

 the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the 

 annihilation of the spirit of blind faith ; and 

 the most ardent votary of science holds his 

 firmest convictions, not because the men he 

 most venerates hold them; not because 

 their verity is testified by portents and 



wonders ; but because his experience teaches 

 him that whenever he chooses to bring 

 these convictions into contact with their 

 primary source. Nature, whenever he thinks 

 fit to test them by appealing to experiment 

 and to observation, Nature will confirm 

 them. The man of science has learned to 

 believe in justification, not by faith, but by 

 verification." To complete this first law in 

 the Decalogue of the scientific student it 

 should be followed by this from his address 

 upon Descartes' Discourse : " When I say 

 that Descartes consecrated doubt, you must 

 remember that it was that sort of doubt 

 which Goethe has called ^ the active scep- 

 ticism, whose whole aim is to conquer it- 

 self; ' and not that other sort which is born 

 of flippancy and ignorance. ''But it is im- 

 possible to define what is meant by scien- 

 tific doubt better than in Descartes' own 

 words. He says : ' Vov all that, I did not 

 imitate the sceptics, who doubt only for 

 doubting's sake, and pretend to be always 

 undecided ; on the contrary, my whole in- 

 tention was to arrive at certainty, and to 

 dig away the drift and the sand until I 

 reached the rock or the clay beneath.' " 



In this spirit, then, of reverent skepticism, 

 of scientific doubt, must the teacher of 

 zoology teach and the student learn. And 

 if this is the spirit, the teachers are but 

 elder brothers a little farther advanced, 

 knowing a few more of the delusions and 

 pitfalls which beset the way. Teacher and 

 pupil work together — the one inspired by 

 the great works of all his predecessors and 

 by Nature herself, and he in turn inspiring 

 and helping the student in his efibrts. 

 Such teachers, such pupils and such inspir- 

 ing surroundings are described by Agassiz 

 in his notable address upon Humboldt : "I 

 was a student at Munich. That university 

 had opened under the most brilliant aus- 

 pices. Almost every name on the list of 

 professors was also prominent in some de- 

 partment of science or literature. They 



