August 30, 1901.] 



SCIENGE. 



323 



after all, I have merely expressed my per- 

 sonal ideals. Let those comfort themselves, 

 therefore, who like my picture not and let 

 them draw one more to their taste. These 

 matters of detail are after all less important; 

 but the general trend of the science I be- 

 lieve to be determined by the great general 

 laws that will hold, whatever the detailed 

 lines of development. First, students of the 

 science will cling closer to inductive 

 methods without abandoning deduction. 

 Speculative web-spinning will be less com- 

 mon, will be less attractive, and will be 

 more avoided by naturalists of repute. 

 Great generalizations will be made, of 

 course, but made with caution and founded 

 at every step on facts. Second, the science 

 will deal more with processes and less with 

 static phenomena, more with causes and less 

 with the accumulation of data. The time 

 is coming when the naturalist who merely 

 describes what he sees in his sections will 

 have neither more nor less claim for con- 

 sideration than he who describes a new 

 variety of animal. It is relations, not facts, 

 that count. Third, the science will become 

 experimental, at least in so far as it deals 

 with processes. Nothing will be taken for 

 granted that can be experimentally tested. 

 Better experimental laboratories will be 

 founded and larger experimental stations, 

 such as Bacon foresaw in the new world, 

 will be established. Fourth, the science 

 will become more quantitative. This is the 

 inexorable law of scientific progress, at least 

 where processes are concerned. I repeat- 

 that there is no reason to expect or desire 

 the abandoning of the lines of work already 

 recognized and followed for a half century 

 or more. Rather holding fast to and ex- 

 tending the old lines of investigation, zo- 

 ology will be enriched by new fields of 

 study lying between and uniting the old. 

 As chemistry and physics are uniting and 

 occupying the intervening field, as geology 

 and botany are coming close together in 



plant ecology, so will zoology and mathe- 

 matics, zoology and geology, zoology and 

 botany find untouched fields between them 

 and common to them. "Working in these 

 new fields and by the aid of new methods, 

 the naturalist of the future will penetrate 

 further into the nature of processes and un- 

 ravel their causes. 



The zoology of the twentieth century 

 will be what the zoologist of the twentieth 

 century makes it. One hundred years ago 

 the prerequisites of the naturalist were few 

 and the opportunities of getting them were 

 small. He must have studied with some 

 master or have worked as an assistant 

 under a naturalist in some museum. The 

 places were few, the masters often difficult 

 of approach. Now while, on the one hand, 

 the training required in vastly more exact- 

 ing, on the other hand, the opportunities 

 are generous. Just because of the fact 

 that zoology is spreading to and overlap- 

 ping the adjacent sciences, the zoologist 

 must have his training broadened and 

 lengthened. A zoologist may well be ex- 

 pected to know the chief modern languages 

 (let us hope this requirement may not be 

 further extended), mathematics through 

 analytics, laboratory methods in organic as 

 well as inorganic chemistry, the use of the 

 ordinary physical instruments, advanced 

 geology and physiography, botany, es- 

 pecially in its ecological, physiological and 

 cytological aspects, and animal paleon- 

 tology. The list of prerequisites is appall- 

 ingly long ; zoologists of the future will be 

 forced to an earlier and narrower speciali- 

 zation, while at the same time they must 

 lay a broader foundation for it. 



But if the prerequisites of the zoologists 

 are to be numerous their acquisition will be 

 easy. Even now scores of universities p\it 

 the services of the best naturalists at the 

 disposal of students and offer free tuition 

 and living to come and study with them. 

 Librarians, great museums, great teachers 



