tural elements of iron struts, wooden rail- 

 ings, and the dark wood and cleai' glass of 

 the cabinets themselves. The busy 

 arrangement of cabinets mirrors the 

 crowding of organisms, while the contrast 

 between dark wood and clear glass rein- 

 forces the variegated diversity of the crea- 

 tures within. The regular elements of cast 

 iron and cabinetry echo the order of taxo- 

 nomic schemes for the allocation of speci- 

 mens. The exuberance is all of one 

 piece — organic and architectural. 



I write this essay to offer my warmest 

 congratulations to the Dublin museum for 

 choosing preservation — a decision that 

 was not only scientifically right but also 

 ethically sound and decidedly courageous. 

 The avant-garde is not the only place of 

 courage; a principled stand within a recon- 

 stituted rear unit may call down just as 

 much ridicule and demand equal fortitude. 

 Crowds do not always rush off in ad- 

 mirable or defendable directions. 



In choosing to construct a dynamic mu- 

 seum of museums, in asserting the old 

 ideal of focusing display on nature's full 

 diversity, in restoring their interior space 

 to Victorian intent by harmonizing archi- 

 tecture with organism, the Dublin mu- 

 seum's curators have stood against most 

 modem trends in museums of science — 

 where fewer specimens, more emphasis 

 on overt pedagogy, and increasing focus 

 on "interactive" display (meaning good 

 and thoughtful rapport of visitor and ob- 

 ject when done well, and glitzy, noisy, 

 push-button-activated nonsense when 

 done poorly) have become the norm. 



Much as I love the cabinet of full vari- 

 ety, I could not defend Dublin's decision if 

 this exhibit in the old style usurped all 

 available space for displaying natural his- 

 tory. After all, we have learned something 

 in the last century, and many of the newer 

 techniques work well, particularly in get- 

 ting children excited about science. But 

 Dublin has found a lovely solution. They 

 have restored their original housing to one 

 of the world's finest and fullest exhibits in 

 the old and stiU-stunning cabinet style — 

 not just a room to showcase the past, but 

 an entire building in full integrity. And 

 they have opened a new building on the 

 next street for needed exhibits in a more 

 modem vein (now featuring the great in- 

 evitability of this year of Jurassic Park — 

 a display about dinosaurs). 



I would not be defending the cabinet 

 style if such museums only honored a wor- 

 thy past. I support this ideal of fullest pos- 

 sible display because it remains so vital 

 and exciting, as capable as ever of inspir- 



ing interest (as well as awe) in any curious 

 person. I agitate for these old-style muse- 

 ums because they are wonderful today. 

 They provide, first of all, a richness in va- 

 riety not available elsewhere. When I vis- 

 ited the Dublin museum, for example, a 

 college course in drawing had convened 

 on the premises — and each student sat in 

 front of a different mammal, sketching at 

 leisure. 



But a second reason beyond immediate, 

 practical utility must be embraced if my 

 argument has any power to persuade. This 

 more subtle, and controversial, point was 

 beautifully expressed by Oliver Sacks in 

 two letters written to me: 



My own first love was biology. I spent a 

 great part of my adolescence in the Natural 

 History Museum in London (and I still go to 

 the Botanic Garden almost every day, and to 

 the Zoo every Monday). The sense of diver- 

 sity — of the wonder of innumerable forms 

 of life — has always thrilled me beyond any- 

 thing else. [December 1990] 



Love of museums was an intense passion 

 for me, for many of us, in adolescence. Erik 

 Kom, Jonathan Miller, and I spent virtually 

 all our spare time in the Natural History 

 Museum, each of us adopting (or being 

 adopted by) different groups — holothuria 

 (Erik), polychaetes (Jonathan), cephalopods 

 (myself). I can still see, with eidetic vivid- 

 ness, the dusty case containing a Stheno- 

 teuthis carolii washed up on the Yorkshire 

 coast in 1925. I have no idea whether that 

 case, or any of the dusty cases we were so in 

 love with, still exist — the old museum, the 

 old museum idea, has been so swept away. I 

 am all for interactive exhibits, like the San 



Francisco Exploratorium, but not at the ex- 

 pense of the old cabinet type of museum. 

 [September 1992] 



None of these three teen-agers grew 

 into a professional zoologist (although 

 others of the same clone and cohort, in- 

 cluding me at the New York museum that 

 publishes this magazine, did) — but all be- 

 came men of great accomplishment, at 

 least partly because they maintained (and 

 transferred to their chosen profession) a 

 museum-inspired love of detail and diver- 

 sity. My friend Erik Kom is England's 

 finest antiquarian book dealer in natural 

 history; Miller's work in medicine and 

 theater, and Sacks's in neurology and psy- 

 chology, are well known. Sacks, in partic- 

 ular, has based the passionate humanism 

 of his unique insight into individual per- 

 sonalities — his revival of the old "case 

 study" method in medicine — upon his ear- 

 lier love for zoological taxonomy. In his 

 letter to me, he continued, "I partly see my 

 patients (some of them, at least) as 'forms 

 of life,' and not just as 'damaged,' or 'de- 

 fective,' or 'abnormal.' " These "old-fash- 

 ioned" museum displays had a profound 

 effect upon the lives of three supremely 

 talented, yet remarkably different, men. 



I must therefore end with a point that 

 may seem outstandingly "politically in- 

 correct," but worthy of strong defense 

 nonetheless. We too often, and tragically, 

 confuse our legitimate dislike of eUtism as 

 imposed limitation with an argument for 

 leveling all concentrated excellence to 

 some least common denominator of maxi- 



18 Natural History 1/94 



