On the Study of Biology ¹

Abstract

IT is my duty to-night to speak about the study of Biology, and while it may be that there are many among you who are quite familiar with that study, yet as a lecturer of some standing, it would, I know by experience, be very bad policy on my part to suppose such to be extensively the case. On the contrary, I must imagine that there are many of you who would like to know what Biology is; that there will be others who have that amount of information, but would nevertheless gladly learn why it should be worth their while to study Biology; and yet others, again, to whom these two points are clear, but who desire to learn how they had best study it, and finally when they had best study it; and I shall address myself to the endeavour to give you some answer to these four questions—what Biology is, why it should be studied, how it should be studied, and when it should be studied.