NARROWNESS OF NATURALISTS. 347 



celebrated zoologists and botanists, among the opponents of 

 the Theory of Descent ; but these latter are mostly old 

 stagers, who have grown grey in quite opposite views, and 

 whom we cannot expect, in the evening of their lives, to 

 submit to a reform in their conception of the universe, 

 which has become to them a fixed idea. 



It is, moreover, expressly to be remarked, that not only 

 a general insight into the ivhole domain of biological 

 phenomena, but also a philosophical understanding of it, 

 are the necessary preliminary conditions for becoming 

 convinced of and adopting the Theory of Descent. Now 

 we shall find that these indispensable preliminary con- 

 ditions are, unfortunately, by no means fulfilled by the 

 majority of naturalists of the present day. The immense 

 amount of empirical facts with which the gigantic 

 advances of modern natural science have recently made us 

 acquainted has led to a prevailing inclination for the 

 special study of single phenomena and of small and 

 narrow domains. This causes the knowledge of other 

 paths, and especially of Nature as a great comprehensive 

 whole, to be in most cases completely neglected. Every one 

 with sound eyes and a miscroscope, together with industry 

 and patience for study, can in our day attain a certain 

 degree of celebrity by microscopic "discoveries," without, 

 however, deserving the name of a natui'alist. This name is 

 deserved only by him who not merely strives, to knoio the 

 individual phenomena, but who also seeks to discover their 

 causal connection. Even in our own day, most palsBontolo- 

 gists examine and describe fossils without knowing the 

 most important facts of embryology. Embryologists, on the 

 other hand, follow the history of development of a particular 



