On the study of zoology and its place in medical and scientific education : being the introductory lecture delivered to the Natural History Class, School of Medicine, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, Tuesday, November 2, 1875 / by Andrew Wilson, Ph.D.

  • Wilson, Andrew, Ph.D.
Date:
1875
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the study of zoology and its place in medical and scientific education : being the introductory lecture delivered to the Natural History Class, School of Medicine, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, Tuesday, November 2, 1875 / by Andrew Wilson, Ph.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    I have thus endeavoured to present to you a very wide and superficial view of the mode in which the zoologist cultivates the fields which he claims as peculiarly his own. But my survey of the requirements for the modern study of Zoology would be most incomplete did I not indicate to you what I consider to be the chief bearings of the Evolution theory on the subject-matter of my course of lectures. I am well aware of the difficulty which attends the clear statement of one's special views on a subject of so wide and varied a nature, and which involves so many considerations of the gravest import. But in these days, when one's works and opinions on all matters relating to natural history science are judged and estimated according to his attitude to this doctrine, it were well that, as professing to instruct others, I should leave none in doubt as to ray views on the merits and demerits of Darwinism. Unquestionably, then, I maintain that the influence of Mr. Darwin's views on Biological science has been in one way of markedly beneficial kind. What Lyell and his predecessors did for Geology in establishing the doctrine of Uniformity, that Mr. Darwin has accomplished for Biology at large. He has shown us without doubt, and in the clearest possible manner, that the various interests, internal and external, of living beings are more universally intercalated, and are more uniform in kind than they were hitherto conceived to be. These points, and the essence of Mr. Darwin's theory, are beau- tifully and forcibly expressed by Goethe in the lines :— Also bestimmt die Gestalt die Lebensweise des Tliieres, Und die Weise des Lebens, sie wirkt auf alle Gestalten, Machtig zuriick — (Hence, eacb form conditions the life and acts of the creature, And each fashion of life, with reflex forcible action, Works on the form :) Through the researches undertaken both by evolutionists