4 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



member of that profession to occupy the presidential chair of 

 your Society during the session which we are now inaugurating, 

 and this is an honour which, I assure you, I greatly appreciate, 

 and for which you have my sincere thanks. 



It may at first sight appear somewhat strange to choose 

 anything which has to do with education for the subj ect of my 

 address this evening, but if we bring to mind the fact that 

 knowledge can only be conceived of in association with life and 

 in relation to the living apparatus or being which contains it or 

 is capable of containing it, I think you will agree that there are 

 some biological points connected with education which may be 

 worthy of consideration. 



Knowledge and ignorance, although abstract subjects 

 which are not measurable, have yet the peculiarity that they 

 have a kind of quantitative relationship to one another ; for 

 instance, a totally untaught being which is quite ignorant has 

 that ignorance lessened and its place taken by knowledge when 

 it learns something. Ignorance, therefore, like knowledge, has 

 its relationships with life, and we have perhaps as much reason 

 to speak of the amount of ignorance possessed by a living 

 creature as we have to estimate the amount of its knowledge. 



By the living creature I do not necessarily mean a human 

 creature. A tree or a plant is just as much alive as a man is, 

 but according to the present state of our wisdom it possesses a 

 vast amount of ignorance and it has no capability of acquiring 

 knowledge. 



When we consider other forms of life, such as the bee or 

 ant, or the bird or fish, or the dog, we recognise that each has 

 some kind or kinds of knowledge, and as we climb up the scale 

 we are driven to the conclusion that every class of animal has 

 knowledge within certain limitations, depending upon the state 

 of development of its apparatus for" knowing, which is generally 

 proportionate to its requirements. 



When we come to the human being it is abundantly evident 



