August 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



213 



point slightly and judge of the workings of 

 a tiger's mind by its actions, we would see 

 that sunshine, soil, rain and dew, the 

 plants, the fat beeves and even man him- 

 self are for the tiger's sole benefit. 



Surely if the other sides of zoology call 

 for imagination, acute observation, profound 

 study and cold, logical reasoning for their 

 comprehension, this side demands all these 

 and in addition a philosophic spirit, that 

 flower of the cultivated human mind. 



I think what has been said will suffice to 

 show that in zoolog}^ there is a factor of 

 true mental culture ; and that by it the 

 philosopher, the philanthropist, the man of 

 afiairs, is better fitted in his own sphere for 

 work and for leisure. If the student feels 

 that some of the inspiration to this culture 

 has departed, that the structure, function, 

 embryology, classification and economics of 

 animals have been almost all discovered 

 and determined, and may be found in the 

 ponderous volumes and monographs in the 

 great libraries, refer him to Aristotle, Dar- 

 win, Dana, Gray or Agassiz, or to any of 

 the devoted men and women who have been 

 and are trying to find out the truth and to 

 follow it, they will say : Be of good 

 cheer, and not faint hearted. Look and 

 listen with hrain as well as eye and ear, for 

 on every side are thrilling sounds whose 

 music no human ear hath heard, and sights 

 whose exquisite beauty no human eye hath 

 seen. 



In closing this address I cannot summa- 

 rize my belief in the cultivating power of 

 the earnest study of zoology better than by 

 saying that a profound contemplation of 

 the factors in the problem of animal life on 

 the earth will bring out and cultivate the 

 mind. It will show man his true relations 

 to his fellow men and to his lowly fellows, 

 the animals. It will not fill the mind with 

 pride, for ultimate knowledge is as yet un- 

 attainable ; it will rather give the humility 

 expressed by Job : " Canst thou by search- 



ing find out God ? canst thou find out the 

 Almighty unto perfection? " or by Newton : 

 " I do not know what I may appear to the 

 world ; but to myself I seem to have been 

 only a boy playing on the seashore and 

 diverting myself in finding now and then a 

 smoother pebble or a prettier shell than 

 ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth 

 lay all undiscovered before me." And an- 

 other from one of the foremost physicists of 

 our own day, Sir William Thompson, at the 

 jubilee of his appointment as professor of 

 natural philosophy at the University of 

 Glasgow : " One word characterizes the 

 most strenuous efforts for the advancement 

 of science that I have made perseveringly 

 through 55 years ; that word is failure ; I 

 know no more of electric and magnetic 

 force, or of the relations between ether, 

 electricity and ponderable matter, or of 

 chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to 

 teach my students of natural philosophy 50 

 years ago in my first session as professor." 

 Yet there is also the pean, if not of victory, 

 of the consciousness of power that comes 

 to him whose mind has been truly cultured 

 by the disciplines brought before you in this 

 series of addresses and none has a surer 

 right to that consciousness or with a surer 

 voice has expressed it than the zoologist in 

 whose place I stand to-day : " The world of 

 thought and the world of action are one in 

 essence. In both truth is strength, and 

 folly and selfishness are weakness. Say 

 what we may about the limitations of the 

 life of man, they are largely self limita- 

 tions. Hemmed in is human life by the 

 force of the fates ; but the will of man is 

 one of the fates, and can take its place by 

 the side of the rest of them," 



Simon Henry Gage. 

 Cornell University. 



INSTINCT AND EDUCATION IN BIRDS. 

 The discussion, first provoked by the 

 note in Science of February 14th relative 



