35o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to the students in our colleges and universities an idea of the results of 

 the activity of the nature seekers. Its sister science, botany, which runs 

 parallel to it, deals with similar phenomena in plants. Still, it is only 

 among animals that we find nervous responses tolerably well developed. 

 The presence of a nervous system in animals in connection with a highly 

 developed state of other organs affords a more comprehensive picture 

 of vital activity. If I seem, in this statement, to show bias, it should be 

 set down to the circumstance that my activities for some years have 

 been taken up mainly with the study of animal life. 



The observations in zoology, as carried on to-day, are so illumina- 

 ting and have such important bearings that we can see why it is that all 

 over the civilized world it has been given such a prominent place in 

 universities and colleges. We begin to understand why great buildings 

 are constructed for its laboratories, and why a number of men in one 

 faculty represent different phases of zoological investigation. This is 

 why in the State University of Iowa, as in other similar institutions, 

 zoology has come to occupy a prominent and an honored place in the 

 curriculum of studies. 



It is the ideas of this science woven into the fabric of human 

 thought which I have in mind, rather than merely its details. Dis- 

 jointed fragments of knowledge are of little worth ; they must be com- 

 bined into a unity before they have much meaning. Isolated facts 

 should be treated as merely specific illustrations of broad truths. The 

 study of one stone in an edifice as to its chemical analysis, its resistance 

 to strain and crushing weight, and its microscopic structure, will not 

 give us an idea of the edifice as a whole. Thus it is that after our stu- 

 dents have observed and experimented in the laboratory they must, 

 under the guidance of the lecturer, be brought to see the relation of 

 their specific observations to zoology as a science. 



It is owing largely to advances in zoology that we are enabled to 

 formulate theories about the world, the history of living beings on it, 

 and the part they play in the scheme of nature. It is owing to the in- 

 tellectual progress that zoology has chiefly promoted that we have been 

 able to comprehend the structure of the human body and thereby to 

 discern the means of promoting its well being and assisting in its care. 



It is owing chiefly to the advances supplied by the study of zoology 

 that one can adequately appreciate the soliloquy that Shakespeare puts 

 in the mouth of Hamlet : " What a piece of work is man ! how noble in 

 reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express and 

 admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! 

 the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals !" 



His structure and his development excite in the mind of the anato- 

 mist the same measure of admiration and wonder. And we observe in 

 passing that the most discerning anatomists are the comparative anato- 

 mists of zoology. 



