214 On the Study of Biology. [ April, 
Thus they have arrived at the conclusion that a fundamental 
uniformity of structure pervades the animal and vegetable worlds, 
and that plants and animals differ from one another simply as 
modifications of the same great general plan. 
Again, they tell us the same story in regard to the study of 
function. They admit the large and important interval which, 
at the present time, separates the manifestations of the mental 
faculties observable in the higher forms of mankind, and even in 
the lower forms, such as we know them, mentally from those ex- 
hibited by other animals; but, at the same time, they tell us that 
the foundations or rudiments of almost all the faculties of man 
are to be met with in the lower animals; that there is a unity of 
mental faculty as well as of bodily structure, and that here also 
the difference is a difference of degree and not of kind. I said 
“almost all ” for a’reason. Among the many distinctions which 
have been drawn between the lower creatures and ourselves, 
there is one which is hardly ever insisted on,! but which may be 
fitly spoken of in a place so largely devoted to art as that in 
which we are assembled. It is this, that while among various 
kinds of animals it is possible to discover traces of all the other 
faculties of man, especially the faculty of mimicry, yet that par- 
ticular form of mimicry which shows itself in the imitation of 
form, either by modeling or by drawing, is not to be met with. 
As far as I know, there is no sculpture or modeling, and decid- 
edly no painting or drawing of animal origin. I mention the 
fact in order that such comfort may be derived therefrom as art- 
ists may feel inclined to take. 
If what the biologists tell us is true, it will be needful for us 
to get rid of our erroneous conceptions of man and of his place m 
nature, and substitute for them right ones. 
Granted that biology is something worth studying, what is the 
best way of studying it? Here I must point out that, since biol- 
ogy is a physical science, the method of studying it must needs 
be analogous to that which is followed in the other physical scl- 
ences. It has now long been recognized that if a man wishes to 
be a chemist it is not only necessary that he should read chemi- 
cal books and attend chemical lectures, but that he should actu- 
ally himself perform the fundamental experiments in the labora- 
tory, and know exactly what the words which he finds im his 
books and hears from his teachers mean. If he does not do 
that, he may read till the crack of doom, but he will never know 
1 I think that Professor Allman was the first to draw attention to it. 
