Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/254

228 realms, they can or should be separated? Is it a fact, as Prof. Brooks believes, that there is a partial failure of training in biological laboratories to make naturalists of the students; and is the explanation of that failure "the belief that our biology (the biology of the present day, and not that of the unknown future) ends with the study of the structure and functions of the physical basis—the belief that biology is 'nothing but' the discovery of its physical and chemical properties"? It is at least probable that we have also naturalists who are not philosophers, and philosophers who are not naturalists.

Zoology to-day is a science of so wide and exhaustive a nature, that its student may indeed form philosophical conclusions, while having no time for the wide reading and reflection necessary to the acquisition of a mental competency. Aristotle's knowledge of zoology was small indeed compared with what may readily be acquired at the present day, but the position is reversed when his philosophical method is compared with modern speculative gymnastics.

This book may be well commended to the perusal of those who love debatable matters, and who seek to tread the labyrinth of biological speculation. It is a good, but not altogether an easy book to read. It is not assertive, but rather argumentative; it often quotes only to question, and frequently details a proposition to show its weakness. Sometimes we ponder over such a conclusion as the following:—"Biology is not a closed science, and Darwin's view of the matter is not proved—possibly is not provable; but its great value is in the proof that there is no shadow of evidence for any other view." Does not this constitute Herbert Spencer's canon of truth—or proof—by the inconceivableness of the contrary? The great importance of these works is that they do not entreat assent, but demand consideration; their mission is not so much to convince as to promote thought:—"Scientific men who are not zoologists are fond of telling us science has nothing to do with the Why? and is concerned only with the How? but, in zoology, it is often easy to discover why an action is performed, while we are very ignorant of the structural conditions under which it takes place."