I may add that, beyond all these different classes 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.

Footnotes

  1. [See] the distinction between the "sciences physiques" and the "sciences physiologiques" in the Anatomie Générale, 1801.
  2. [Hydrogéologie], 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 weathercock 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 document, 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 accumulation 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.

[XI]

ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY

[1877]

The chief ground upon which I venture to recommend that the teaching of elementary physiology should form an essential part of any organised course of instruction in matters pertaining to domestic economy, is, that a knowledge of even the elements of this subject supplies those conceptions of the constitution and mode of action of the living body, and of the nature of health and disease, which prepare the mind to receive instruction from sanitary science.

It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist and the physician should find something in the public mind to which they can appeal; some little stock of universally acknowledged truths, which may serve as a foundation for their warnings, and predispose towards an intelligent obedience to their recommendations.