Under this general head should be mentioned stations under the control of the Carnegie Institution, the various scientific surveys under the Government, and the United States Fish Commission, which carries on investigations in the biology of fishes as well as observations that affect their use as articles of diet. The combined output of the various laboratories and stations of this nature is very considerable, and their influence upon the progress of biology is properly included under the head of present tendencies.
The organization of laboratories in our great universities and their product exercise a wide influence on the progress of biology, that science having within twenty-five years come to occupy a position of great importance among the subjects of general education.
Establishment and Maintenance of Technical Periodicals.—It is manifestly very important to provide means for the publication of results and, as needed, to have technical periodicals established and properly maintained. Their maintenance can not be effected on a purely commercial basis, and the result is that some of our best periodicals require financial assistance in order to exist at all. The subsidizing and support of these periodicals aid materially in the biological advance. A typical technical periodical is Schultze's famous Archiv für Mikroscopische Anatomie, founded in 1864 by Schultze and continued to the present time. Into its pages go the highest grade of investigations, and its continued existence has a salutary influence upon the progress of biology. The list of technical periodicals would be too long to name, but among others the Morphologisches Jahrbuch of Gegenbaur, and Koelliker's Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie have had wide influence. In England the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science is devoted to morphological investigations, while physiology is provided for in other journals, as it is also in Germany and other countries. In the United States the Journal of Morphology, edited by C.O. Whitman, passed through seventeen volumes and was maintained on the highest plane of scholarship. The fine execution of the plates and the high grade of typographical work made this journal conspicuous. It represents in every way an enterprise of which Americans can be justly proud. The American Journal of Anatomy is now filling the field left unoccupied by the cessation of the Journal of Morphology.[9] In the department of experimental work many journals have sprung up, as Biometrica, edited by Carl Pearson, Roux's Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik, the Journal of Experimental Zoology recently established in the United States, etc., etc.
Exploration of the Fossil Records.—Explorations of the fossil records have been recently carried out on a scale never before attempted, involving the expenditure of large sums, but bringing results of great importance. The American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, has carried on an extensive survey, which has enriched it with wonderful collections of fossil animals. Besides explorations of the fossil-bearing rocks of the Western States and Territories, operations in another locality of great importance are conducted in the Fayûm district of Egypt. The result of the studies of these fossil animals is to make us acquainted not only with the forms of ancient life, but with the actual line of ancestry of many living animals. The advances in this direction are most interesting and most important. This extensive investigation of the fossil records is one of the present tendencies in biology.
Conclusion.—In brief, the chief tendencies in current biological researches are mainly included under the following headings: Experimental studies in heredity, evolution, and animal behavior; more exact anatomical investigations, especially in cytology and neurology, the promotion and dissemination of knowledge through biological periodicals; the provision of better facilities in specially equipped laboratories, in the application of results to the benefit of mankind, and in the investigation of the fossil records.
The atmosphere of thought engendered by the progress of biology is beneficial in every way. While its progress has dealt the death-blow to many superstitions and changed materially views regarding the universe, it is gratifying to think that it has not been iconoclastic in its influence, but that it has substituted something better for that which was taken away. It has given a broader and more wholesome basis for religion and theories of ethics; it has taught greater respect for truth and morality. However beneficial this progress has been in the past, who can doubt that the mission of biology to the twentieth century will be more important than to the past, and that there will be embraced in its progress greater benefits than any we have yet known?
FOOTNOTES:
[9] It is a source of gratification to biologists that—thanks to the Wistar Institute of Anatomy—the publication of the Journal of Morphology is to be continued.