314 EDWARD S. MORSE ON 



eyes nor the leisure to acquire these new methods, but realize in a thousand ways the 

 imperative necessity of section cutting for the proper interpretation of certain parts in 

 the anatomy of these creatures. In tliis connection, however, I cannot refrain from call- 

 ing attention to the opening words of an introductory lecture by Professor J. R. Thomson, 

 the newly appointed regius professor of natural history in the University of Aberdeen, 

 wherein he gives utterance to a note of warning as to the direction in which our biologi- 

 cal stixdies are tending. He says, "Amid the undoubted and surely legitimate fascination 

 of dissection and osteology, of section cutting and histology, of physiological chemistry 

 and physiological physics, of embryology and fossil hunting, and the like, do we not need 

 to be reminded sometimes that the chief end of our study is a better understanding of 

 living creatures in their natural surroundings?" He even goes so far as to say that it is 

 difficult to see any reason for adding aimlessly to the already overwhelming mass of 

 morphological and systematic detail, and that what we should rather aim at, is the under- 

 standing of the chief laws of organic architecture, of the certainties and possibilities of 

 blood-relationship among living creatures, and a true conception of what is meant by the 

 term organization. As has been pointed out elsewhere by Professor Alfred Newton, such 

 a warning is undoubtedly needed at the present day, when there is far too great a ten- 

 dency to regard the description of mere structure as the ultimate end of biological 

 research. "It is as if some person to whom modern telegraphy were unknown were to 

 describe in great detail the mechanics of the various instruments employed therein, with- 

 out the vaguest conception of their practical use." (Nature: July 13, 1899.) 



Had, Hancock been able to avail himself of section cutting he would have got no light 

 upon the action of the oblique muscles in Lingula, or the various attitudes of the l^rachia, 

 or the extreme mobility of the brachial folds or the various behaviors of the setae, the 

 convolutions of the elongated peduncle, and many other life features. On the other 

 hand, his elaborate system of vascular circulation with the supposed functions of the 

 "central and accessory hearts" might have been interpreted differently had he been 

 familiar with this modern method. It is only fair to state that my only sections were cut 

 with a razor, without staining or supporting substance, and most of the work was done 

 with a Tolles' triplet. 



I wish here to express my obligations to Dr. C. E. Beecher, Professor W. H. Dall, 

 and Mr. Charles Schuchert, for many favors \vhile preparing these pages. For providing 

 the means to meet the considerable expense involved in reproducing the many plates in 

 lithography, I am greatly indebted to the Bache fund of the National Academy of 

 Sciences for a liberal grant, and to Dr. Alexander Agassiz and Mr. Augustus Hemenway. 

 Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Meisel for the care he has exercised in making the 

 plates. 



