* * * * *

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.

    [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 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