ABSTRACT
The encroachments of the pure geometers upon the domain of biology have been attended with the mischief, but in an aggravated form, that political theorists have witnessed in the case of other sciences. Biology, then, may be regarded as having for its object the connecting, in each determinate case, of the anatomical and the physiological point of view; or, in other words, the static and dynamic. Thus broad and sound is the basis of the comparative method, in regard to biology. The popular notion of comparative biology is that it consists wholly of the last of the methods, and this shows how preeminent it is over the others—the popular exaggeration, however, being mischievous by concealing the origin of the art. The effect becomes even more striking in the other direction, from biological phenomena being, beyond all others, susceptible of modification from human intervention.
