SOME ASPECTS OF ZOOLOGY 29 



either by educationists or moralists, in the reconstruction that 

 we hope we may soon be actively engaged on. 



I am net going to try to defend its study on utilitarian 

 grounds. That it has a certain utilitarian value is obvious. 

 Many of the diseases from which we sufEer, much of the loss 

 sustained by our crops and domestic animals, are caused by 

 animal parasites ; and unless we are able to identify with 

 certainty and to follow up accurately the habits of these 

 pests we cannot hope to mitigate them. In connection with 

 the improvement of our breeds of cattle and other domestic 

 animals the study of genetics, common to zoology and botany, 

 has made vast strides in recent years, and when peace allows 

 these biological studies to be resumed, still greater results may 

 be expected. It is not necessary to labour this point any 

 further. 



But, apart from its inherent interest and its value as a 

 source of intellectual pleasure, zoology has a special claim on 

 our attention because of its usefulness as a training of our 

 faculties and as a guide, and no uncertain guide, in our aspira- 

 tions towards higher ideals of human welfare and improve- 

 ment in social organisation. 



Here let me say that I use the term zoology in exactly the 

 same sense as Huxley used it fifty-six years ago, as " denoting 

 the whole doctrine of animal hfe, in contradistinction to 

 botany, which signifies the whole doctrine of vegetable life." 



This wide scope of zoology was summed up, in an aphor- 

 istic manner, by Linnaeus when he wrote : " Lapides crescimt ; 

 vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt; animalia crescunt, vivunt et 

 sentiunt." 



"AnimaHa . . . sentiunt!" These two words express the 

 great difference between the subject matter of zoology and that 

 of all the other natural sciences. Animals feel, and therefore are 

 akin to ourselves.. The relationship is insistent. One reaUses 

 its importance at every recm'rent period when one begins afresh 

 a course of instruction in elementary zoology. Without excep- 

 tion one's students ask, " How does all this that you tell us 

 about animals stand in relation to ourselves ? " The obvious 

 analogy between man and the higher animals, in structure, in 



