80 WOODWARD 



of necessity. The battle royal of these two rival theories, as 

 you know, lasted for nearly a century until the emission theory, 

 by the sheer force of critical observ^ations and experiments, was 

 displaced by the undulatory theory through the brilliant re- 

 searches of Young and Fresnel. 



When we turn from the physical to the geological and bio- 

 logical sciences, the same lessons of the necessity and the effi- 

 ciency of observation and experiment are still more strikingl}- 

 apparent. For although geology and biology are the youngest 

 of the grand divisions of science, they have accomplished more 

 than all others toward giving man a proper orientation with re- 

 spect to the rest of the universe. Geology as we now under- 

 stand the term is but little more than a hundred years old, and 

 biology in the sense now attached to the word, is less than fifty 

 years old. Nevertheless, these sciences have been the chief 

 contributors to the doctrine of evolution, which, in v^iew of the 

 wide range of its applicability, must be regarded as the most 

 important generalization of science. 



It is a singular circumstance, however, considering the early 

 advances made in the interpretation of the phenomena of as- 

 tronomy, that the equally ubiquitous and far more accessible 

 phenomena of geology and biology should have been so tardily 

 investigated. The cause of this delay seems to lie in the fact, 

 not without examples in the present day, that our remote an- 

 cestors had the habit of constructing their theories first and 

 making their observ^ations, if at all, afterwards ; and in the cases 

 of geology and biology they were so well satisfied with their 

 theories that the trouble of making observations was for a long 

 time dispensed with. 



We of the present day have no right, perhaps — and I for one 

 would not be disposed to use such a right if conceded — to blame 

 our predecessors for the narrow, and in some instances crooked 

 views they held with regard to these subjects. But on the other 

 hand, we shall fail, I think, to make proper use of our oppor- 

 tunities if we do not learn speedily to conduct scientific investi- 

 gations in the future so as to avoid such colossal blunders as 

 mar the history of geology and biology from its beginnings 

 down almost to our own time. 



