mending 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 e