208 THE QUANTITATIVE METHOD IN BIOLOGY 



that the quantitative description of specific forms is only one of 

 the numerous possible applications of the method described in 

 this book, because many biologists take little interest in the 

 systematic part of their science. From the fact that I have 

 applied the quantitative method especially to systematics, they 

 might be tempted to conclude that this method is good for 

 specific description only and is of no importance for other 

 subjects. 



There has been a breach of continuity in the historical de- 

 velopment of Biological Science. The classical work of LIN- 

 N^US, the DE JUSSIEUS, LAMARCK, LATREILLE, R. 

 BROWN, the DE CANDOLLES, DESHAYES, LINDLEY, 

 BERKELEY, REICHENBACH, VON MARTIUS, W. and 

 J. D. HOOKER and other masters of descriptive science, who 

 tried to inventory and to classify the specific forms, has made 

 hardly any substantial progress for half-a-century. It has been, 

 as it were, interrupted when the doctrine of the constancy of 

 species was replaced by the idea that specific forms are trans- 

 formed one into another by the accumulation of impalpable 

 changes (DARWIN) . It is true, many new species (or so-called 

 species) have been discovered and described, but the new 

 material has been studied almost entirely according to old- 

 fashioned methods. The specific and generic descriptions 

 of Vertebrate and Articulate animals. Molluscs (recent and 

 fossil shells), Phanerogams, etc., which are published every 

 year in a number of memoirs and books, are on the whole 

 drawn up in the same way as half-a-century or even a century 

 ago.i 



On the other hand, scientific research along new lines has 

 obtained more prominent positions : much progress has been 

 achieved in anatomy, cytology, embryology, physiology, 

 hybridization, heredity, variation, biology properly so called — 

 that is to say, in those parts of zoology and botany which might 

 be called laboratory science. 



Unfortunately systematic science, being almost entirely con- 

 fined to museums and private collections, did not avail itself of 

 the progress of laboratory science. On the other hand, numer- 

 ous biologists, who are working in laboratories or experimental 

 gardens, have almost forgotten the existence of systematics. 

 They limit themselves to a rather small number of forms, which 

 are, on the whole, nearly the same in all the universities and 

 laboratories of Europe. They no longer realize the astonishing 



1 Compare, for instance, the Flora of the Paris District, edited in i8s7 by 

 COSSON AND GERMAIN, or GEORGE BENTHAM'S Handbook of the 

 British Flora (New edition, 1866) with the new floras which have been 

 published in Europe and other parts of the world in the last twenty years 

 A s far as the method is concerned, several of the new works are rather inferior 

 to COSSON AND GERMAIN or BENTHAM. 



