CHAPTBE II. 



PEACTrCAL WOEK. 



The mere reading of books is not by itself of much 

 good to the elementary student; a knowledge of ani- 

 mals cannot be obtained except by seeing them. If 

 the student wishes to understand the internal struc- 

 ture of animals, he will have to learn to dissect them ; 

 he may, however, wish only to study the habits of 

 animals, and make friendly acquaintance with them in 

 the live state. He should make up his mind what 

 he wants to do : whether his ambition is in the direc- 

 tion of becoming a comparative anatomist or a natu- 

 ralist. Of course he may be hotJi (as Abernethy's 

 patient suggested, when told that a man of forty is 

 either a physician or a fool) ; but the presumption is 

 against it, when one considers the contradictory ten- 

 dencies of the two — for the naturalist rejoices in 

 keeping his animals alive, while the enthusiastic com- 

 parative anatomist wants to dissect them as soon as 

 possible. In making the choice of your own line, do 

 not forget that Darwin was pre-eminently a naturalist. 

 It was by watching the natural conditions of animal 

 life and of plant life, and sometimes the interaction of 

 the two, that he did more to enable us to understand 

 the truth about living creatures than has ever been 



