American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology Part 5

I might go on multiplying these examples, but I see that the clock won't wait for me, and I must therefore pa.s.s to the third question to which I referred: Granted that Biology is something worth studying, what is the best way of studying it? Here I must point out that, since Biology is a physical science, the method of studying it must needs be a.n.a.logous to that which is followed in the other physical sciences. It has now long been recognised that, if a man wishes to be a chemist, it is not only necessary that he should read chemical books and attend chemical lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamental experiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly what the words which he finds in his books and hears from his teachers, mean.

If he does not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, but he will never know much about chemistry. That is what every chemist will tell you, and the physicist will do the same for his branch of science. The great changes and improvements in physical and chemical scientific education, which have taken place of late, have all resulted from the combination of practical teaching with the reading of books and with the hearing of lectures. The same thing is true in Biology. n.o.body will ever know anything about Biology except in a dilettante "paper-philosopher"

way, who contents himself with reading books on botany, zoology, and the like; and the reason of this is simple and easy to understand. It is that all language is merely symbolical of the things of which it treats; the more complicated the things, the more bare is the symbol, and the more its verbal definition requires to be supplemented by the information derived directly from the handling, and the seeing, and the touching of the thing symbolised:--that is really what is at the bottom of the whole matter. It is plain common sense, as all truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified. If you want a man to be a tea merchant, you don't tell him to read books about China or about tea, but you put him into a tea-merchant's office where he has the handling, the smelling, and the tasting of tea. Without the sort of knowledge which can be gained only in this practical way, his exploits as a tea merchant will soon come to a bankrupt termination. The "paper-philosophers" are under the delusion that physical science can be mastered as literary accomplishments are acquired, but unfortunately it is not so. You may read any quant.i.ty of books, and you may be almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don't have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.

It may be said:--"That is all very well, but you told us just now that there are probably something like a quarter of a million different kinds of living and extinct animals and plants, and a human life could not suffice for the examination of one-fiftieth part of all these." That is true, but then comes the great convenience of the way things are arranged; which is, that although there are these immense numbers of different kinds of living things in existence, yet they are built up, after all, upon marvellously few plans.

There are certainly more than 100,000 species of insects, and yet anybody who knows one insect--if a properly chosen one--will be able to have a very fair conception of the structure of the whole. I do not mean to say he will know that structure thoroughly, or as well as it is desirable he should know it; but he will have enough real knowledge to enable him to understand what he reads, to have genuine images in his mind of those structures which become so variously modified in all the forms of insects he has not seen. In fact, there are such things as types of form among animals and vegetables, and for the purpose of getting a definite knowledge of what const.i.tutes the leading modifications of animal and plant life, it is not needful to examine more than a comparatively small number of animals and plants.

Let me tell you what we do in the biological laboratory which is lodged in a building adjacent to this. There I lecture to a cla.s.s of students daily for about four-and-a-half months, and my cla.s.s have, of course, their text-books; but the essential part of the whole teaching, and that which I regard as really the most important part of it, is a laboratory for practical work, which is simply a room with all the appliances needed for ordinary dissection. We have tables properly arranged in regard to light, microscopes, and dissecting instruments, and we work through the structure of a certain number of animals and plants. As, for example, among the plants, we take a yeast plant, a _Protococcus_, a common mould, a _Chara_, a fern, and some flowering plant; among animals we examine such things as an _Amoeba_, a _Vorticella_, and a fresh-water polype. We dissect a star-fish, an earth-worm, a snail, a squid, and a fresh-water mussel. We examine a lobster and a cray-fish, and a black beetle. We go on to a common skate, a cod-fish, a frog, a tortoise, a pigeon, and a rabbit, and that takes us about all the time we have to give. The purpose of this course is not to make skilled dissectors, but to give every student a clear and definite conception, by means of sense-images, of the characteristic structure of each of the leading modifications of the animal kingdom; and that is perfectly possible, by going no further than the length of that list of forms which I have enumerated. If a man knows the structure of the animals I have mentioned, he has a clear and exact, however limited, apprehension of the essential features of the organisation of all those great divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms to which the forms I have mentioned severally belong. And it then becomes possible for him to read with profit; because every time he meets with the name of a structure, he has a definite image in his mind of what the name means in the particular creature he is reading about, and therefore the reading is not mere reading. It is not mere repet.i.tion of words; but every term employed in the description, we will say, of a horse, or of an elephant, will call up the image of the things he had seen in the rabbit, and he is able to form a distinct conception of that which he has not seen, as a modification of that which he has seen.

I find this system to yield excellent results; and I have no hesitation whatever in saying, that any one who has gone through such a course, attentively, is in a better position to form a conception of the great truths of Biology, especially of morphology (which is what we chiefly deal with), than if he had merely read all the books on that topic put together.

The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection of certain aids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that very interesting collection may have noticed a series of diagrams and of preparations ill.u.s.trating the structure of a frog. Those diagrams and preparations have been made for the use of the students in the biological laboratory. Similar diagrams and preparations ill.u.s.trating the structure of all the other forms of life we examine, are either made or in course of preparation. Thus the student has before him, first, a picture of the structure he ought to see; secondly, the structure itself worked out; and if with these aids, and such needful explanations and practical hints as a demonstrator can supply, he cannot make out the facts for himself in the materials supplied to him, he had better take to some other pursuit than that of biological science.

I should have been glad to have said a few words about the use of museums in the study of Biology, but I see that my time is becoming short, and I have yet another question to answer. Nevertheless I must, at the risk of wearying you, say a word or two upon the important subject of museums. Without doubt there are no helps to the study of Biology, or rather to some branches of it, which are, or may be, more important than natural history museums; but, in order to take this place in regard to Biology, they must be museums of the future. The museums of the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as they might do. I do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many of you, seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a holiday usefully, have visited some great natural history museum. You have walked through a quarter of a mile of animals, more or less well stuffed, with their long names written out underneath them; and, unless your experience is very different from that of most people, the upshot of it all is that you leave that splendid pile with sore feet, a bad headache, and a general idea that the animal kingdom is a "mighty maze without a plan." I do not think that a museum which brings about this result does all that may be reasonably expected from such an inst.i.tution. What is needed in a collection of natural history is that it should be made as accessible and as useful as possible, on the one hand to the general public, and on the other to scientific workers. That need is not met by constructing a sort of happy hunting-ground of miles of gla.s.s cases; and, under the pretence of exhibiting everything, putting the maximum amount of obstacle in the way of those who wish properly to see anything.

What the public want is easy and unhindered access to such a collection as they can understand and appreciate; and what the men of science want is similar access to the materials of science. To this end the vast ma.s.s of objects of natural history should be divided into two parts--one open to the public, the other to men of science, every day. The former division should exemplify all the more important and interesting forms of life. Explanatory tablets should be attached to them, and catalogues containing clearly-written popular expositions of the general significance of the objects exhibited should be provided. The latter should contain, packed into a comparatively small s.p.a.ce, in rooms adapted for working purposes, the objects of purely scientific interest.

For example, we will say I am an ornithologist. I go to examine a collection of birds. It is a positive nuisance to have them stuffed. It is not only sheer waste, but I have to reckon with the ideas of the bird-stuffer, while, if I have the skin and n.o.body has interfered with it, I can form my own judgment as to what the bird was like. For ornithological purposes, what is needed is not gla.s.s cases full of stuffed birds on perches, but convenient drawers into each of which a great quant.i.ty of skins will go. They occupy no great s.p.a.ce and do not require any expenditure beyond their original cost. But for the edification of the public, who want to learn indeed, but do not seek for minute and technical knowledge, the case is different. What one of the general public walking into a collection of birds desires to see is not all the birds that can be got together. He does not want to compare a hundred species of the sparrow tribe side by side; but he wishes to know what a bird is, and what are the great modifications of bird structure, and to be able to get at that knowledge easily. What will best serve his purpose is a comparatively small number of birds carefully selected, and artistically, as well as accurately, set up; with their different ages, their nests, their young, their eggs, and their skeletons side by side; and in accordance with the admirable plan which is pursued in this museum, a tablet, telling the spectator in legible characters what they are and what they mean. For the instruction and recreation of the public such a typical collection would be of far greater value than any many-acred imitation of Noah's ark.

Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may best be pursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should not be made, to a certain extent, a part of ordinary school training. I have long advocated this view, and I am perfectly certain that it can be carried out with ease, and not only with ease, but with very considerable profit to those who are taught; but then such instruction must be adapted to the minds and needs of the scholars. They used to have a very odd way of teaching the cla.s.sical languages when I was a boy. The first task set you was to learn the rules of the Latin grammar in the Latin language--that being the language you were going to learn! I thought then that this was an odd way of learning a language, but did not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now, perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself to think that it was a very absurd fas.h.i.+on. But it would be no less absurd, if we were to set about teaching Biology by putting into the hands of boys a series of definitions of the cla.s.ses and orders of the animal kingdom, and making them repeat them by heart. That is so very favourite a method of teaching, that I sometimes fancy the spirit of the old cla.s.sical system has entered into the new scientific system, in which case I would much rather that any pretence at scientific teaching were abolished altogether. What really has to be done is to get into the young mind some notion of what animal and vegetable life is. In this matter, you have to consider practical convenience as well as other things. There are difficulties in the way of a lot of boys making messes with slugs and snails; it might not work in practice. But there is a very convenient and handy animal which everybody has at hand, and that is himself; and it is a very easy and simple matter to obtain common plants. Hence the general truths of anatomy and physiology can be taught to young people in a very real fas.h.i.+on by dealing with the broad facts of human structure. Such viscera as they cannot very well examine in themselves, such as hearts, lungs, and livers, may be obtained from the nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teaching something about the biology of plants, there is no practical difficulty, because almost any of the common plants will do, and plants do not make a mess--at least they do not make an unpleasant mess; so that, in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to very young people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, and the elements of botany on the other; beyond that I do not think it will be feasible to advance for some time to come. But then I see no reason why, in secondary schools, and in the Science Cla.s.ses which are under the control of the Science and Art Department--and which I may say, in pa.s.sing, have, in my judgment, done so very much for the diffusion of a knowledge of science over the country--we should not hope to see instruction in the elements of Biology carried out, not perhaps to the same extent, but still upon somewhat the same principle as here. There is no difficulty, when you have to deal with students of the ages of 15 or 16, in practising a little dissection and in getting a notion of, at any rate, the four or five great modifications of the animal form; and the like is true in regard to the higher anatomy of plants.

While, lastly, to all those who are studying biological science with a view to their own edification merely, or with the intention of becoming zoologists or botanists; to all those who intend to pursue physiology--and especially to those who propose to employ the working years of their lives in the practice of medicine--I say that there is no training so fitted, or which may be of such important service to them, as the discipline in practical biological work which I have sketched out as being pursued in the laboratory hard by.

I may add that, beyond all these different cla.s.ses of persons who may profit by the study of Biology, there is yet one other. I remember, a number of years ago, that a gentleman who was a vehement opponent of Mr.

Darwin's views and had written some terrible articles against them, applied to me to know what was the best way in which he could acquaint himself with the strongest arguments in favour of evolution. I wrote back, in all good faith and simplicity, recommending him to go through a course of comparative anatomy and physiology, and then to study development. I am sorry to say he was very much displeased, as people often are with good advice. Notwithstanding this discouraging result, I venture, as a parting word, to repeat the suggestion, and to say to all the more or less acute lay and clerical "paper-philosophers"[7] who venture into the regions of biological controversy--Get a little sound, thorough, practical, elementary instruction in biology.

[1] See the distinction between the "sciences physiques" and the "sciences physiologiques" in the "Anatomic Generale," 1801.

[2] "Hydrogeologie," an. x. (1801).

[3] "The term _Biology_, which means exactly what we wish to express, _the Science of Life_, has often been used, and has of late become not uncommon, among good writers."--Whewell, "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p. 544 (edition of 1847).

[4] I think that my friend Professor Allman was the first to draw attention to it.

[5] Galileo was troubled by a sort of people whom he called "paper philosophers," because they fancied that the true reading of nature was to be detected by the collation of texts. The race is not extinct, but, as of old, brings forth its "winds of doctrine" by which the weatherc.o.c.k heads among us are much exercised.

[6] Some critics do not even take the trouble to read. I have recently been adjured with much solemnity, to state publicly why I have "changed my opinion" as to the value of the palaeontological evidence of the occurrence of evolution.

To this my reply is, Why should I, when that statement was made seven years ago? An address delivered from the Presidential Chair of the Geological Society, in 1870, may be said to be a public doc.u.ment, inasmuch as it not only appeared in the _Journal_ of that learned body, but was re-published, in 1873, in a volume of "Critiques and Addresses," to which my name is attached. Therein will be found a pretty full statement of my reasons for enunciating two propositions: (1) that "when we turn to the higher _Vertebrata_, the results of recent investigations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem to me to leave a clear balance in favour of the evolution of living forms one from another;" and (2) that the case of the horse is one which "will stand rigorous criticism."

Thus I do not see clearly in what way I can be said to have changed my opinion, except in the way of intensifying it, when in consequence of the acc.u.mulation of similar evidence since 1870, I recently spoke of the denial of evolution as not worth serious consideration.

[7] Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the Baconian method. I beg them therefore to lay to heart these two weighty sayings of the herald of Modern Science:--

"Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verba notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsae (_id quod basis rei est_) confusae sint et temere a rebus abstractae, nihil in iis quae superstruuntur est firmitudinis."--"Novum Organon," ii. 14.

"Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa levitate ita indulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliis scripturis sacris, philosophiam naturalem fundare conati sint; _inter vivos quaerentes mortua_."--_Ibid._, 65.