No. 575] RESPONSES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS 671 



as broad general guides, and investigation should ho 

 measured on the basis of its thoroughness, the originality 

 shown, etc. 



In science special schemes of course do not exist recog- 

 nized as such, but intolerant application of criteria of 

 values results in essentially the same condition. One 

 often hears the statement made by so-called scientific 

 men, that this or that line of investigation has been pur- 

 sued for several years, hut has failed to yield important 

 advances or generalizations, hut they add. we will he very 

 glad to recognize it as soon as its value is proven. This 

 seems to us to be a distinctly unscientific attitude, and 

 but a polite modern statement of a spirit which in former 

 generations often sent men to the stake or dungeon. This 



theories) thus presented that have in the recent past 

 stifled the study of responses by discouraging efforts in 

 that direction and thus contributed materially toward 

 making zoology the unorganized science which it is 

 to-day. We must recognize that the various aspects of 

 zoology pure and applied have never been well corre- 

 lated, less so we believe than in any other branch of 

 natural science, clearlv less than in botany. In general, 

 animal physiology has been isolated in medical schools 

 and genetics, faunistics and morphology have not been 

 properly influenced by it, while morphologists for many 

 years held themselves aloof from other workers. 



In a discussion dealing mainly with the doctrine of 

 natural selection in the origination of adaptations, 

 Mathews ('13) has sounded the keynote of a growing 

 attitude toward all response questions. Out of the infi- 

 nite different combinations which may enter into the 

 proteid molecule and the varying rates at which metabolic 

 action may go forward, innumerable types of irritability 



