222 Foster: Integration tn Science. 
Learning, of one kind and another, from the times of old, 
has been encouraged and supported by societies instituted for 
that purpose, and general biologic learning, the studies which 
keep in view the fundamental unity of the knowledge of living 
things, may be greatly aided by such societies, and that in very — 
different ways. 
n the one hand, such an encouragement of general in- 
tegrating biologic studies, as indeed of like studies in other fields 
of science, is, I venture to think, one and not the least important 
of the functions of the Royal Society of London. At its origin 
it was the only scientific society in England, and as we have 
seen took all the sciences in charge. Since that time, and 
especially in these latter days, societies have been formed in 
respect to most of the several sciences for the purpose of doing 
for each what the Royal Society desired to do for all. In great 
measure these children have taken up the work of their mother, 
and relieved her hands. But none of them is in a position to do 
what she alone can fitly do, none can bring to bear upon a general 
question, involving more than one science or more than one 
branch of a science, the energies of minds trained in wholly or 
greatly differing studies. The Royal Society possesses an in- 
tegrating power absent from other special societies, and, wield- 
ing this power aright, may greatly aid the consummation of 
that unity of biologic studies which we so much desire. 
n the other hand, societies such as the one to which I now 
have the honour of speaking, have a no less important function. 
Your society, if I judge its aims and work aright, is also an in- 
tegrating machine of no small power. By your very circumstances 
you are precluded from devoting yourselves to any narrow end, 
from making yourselves the slaves of any school. You are not 
‘cabinned and cribbed’ in any building, you are not trammelled by 
any traditions, you are not confined to any special line of study. 
The field is your laboratory, Nature herself is your teacher, and 
you can roam at your will over all the pastures of biology, 
without the let and hindrance of prescribed study and academic 
ordinance. You are the complement of the University and of | 
the Special Society, and it is your privilege, and in the interests 
of science your duty, to nurse and cherish that which they, 
willingly or unwillingly, neglect. It is for you to see that the 
naturalist of old does not die out; and indeed, as elsewhere, 
learning goes on its way differentiating and narrowing more and 
more, your work is more and more called for. It is for you, and 
such as you, to gather and preserve the bits of knowledge which ee 
Naturalist, ; Se 
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