1888.] Prof. Wilhelm His on Animal Morphology. 
287 
4. On the Principles of Animal Morphology. By Professor 
Wilhelm His of Leipzig. Letter to Mr John 
Murray, V.P.R.S.Ed. Communicated hy Professor Sir 
William Tuener. 
Dear Sir, — During the very delightful excursion in your “ Me- 
dusa,” in which I had, with two of our friends, the pleasure of 
accompanying you through some of the western lochs of Scotland, we 
had not only many opportunities of admiring the special beauties of 
your country, hut also many periods devoted to scientific work and to 
scientific discussions. You were good enough to demonstrate to us 
your ingenious methods of determining deep-sea temperatures. You 
dredged in our presence masses of beautiful shining Schizopods, 
and also before our eyes you formed the once so famous Batliyhius 
Huxleyi. We conversed on general principles of natural philosophy, 
and on the different modes of regarding organic life and organic 
forms. You then invited me to give you a written explanation of 
my own morphological views — an invitation which I propose to 
accept in the following pages. 
Whilst sailing with you, I had a strong impression of the incom- 
parable advantages given to all natural philosophers who have the 
opportunity of studying nature not only in the narrow rooms of 
museums and of laboratories, but also in the open air. On the sea, 
on the mountains, and in travelling to distant zones, there is a 
peculiarly healthy atmosphere which has the power of giving all 
our ideas free range, and of delivering them from merely scholastic 
limitations and from petty personal influences. 
In such open-air studies, continued round the whole earth, a man 
of such profoundness of thought as Charles Darwin would find 
the first germ of his powerful conceptions, and also in open-air 
studies he collected a good many of the numerous observations which 
enabled him afterwards to build up, out of his first conceptions, the 
magnificent edifice that is the pride of our century. 
It is not every one who can go round the earth, nor even exchange 
his laboratory for the sea and mountains, still less has every one 
the powerful mind of Charles Darwin ; but every one can follow the 
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