Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Problems of Biology
The aim of this essay is to inquire into the nature of the problems which come before us in the study of animals and plants, in order that we may define the right method and the limits of biology, and that we may obtain some adequate criterion by which to judge of the merits of the numerous theories which have arisen in explanation of facts about organisms. Its method is throughout that of inquiry; and I shall build up no systematic hypothesis as a solution of the problems. For we shall find that such hypotheses, as are most commonly used in this matter, bring with them certain unavoidable disadvantages, in that they are themselves in contradiction with the very possibility of research, and serve rather to hide the problems than to give any satisfactory account of them. And our material is two-fold; for there are the theories of biology on the one hand, and on the other the records of research; and these two sources are, for the critical study of problems, equally important.
Every serious student of biology must be conscious of a remarkable anarchy within the science, as well as of a certain indefiniteness in its scope.
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