Sea-fishery Investigations and the Balance of Life

Abstract

THE impression that Prof. McIntosh's address, published in NATURE of July 3 and 10, must leave upon the minds of readers unfamiliar with the history and progress of sea-fishery research must be that there has been a great deal of misdirected energy during the past fifteen or twenty years in the attempt to gain control of the output of the sea by the application of science to sea-fishery problems. If, as Prof. McIntosh still maintains, the prodigality and bounty of Nature mock all human efforts to modify the natural course of events in the sea for good or ill, it becomes surely a national duty to oppose all further applications for national expenditure upon sea-fishery investigations. As this, judging from his concluding paragraph, is not the aim which Prof. McIntosh has in view, it seems desirable to inquire a little more closely into the basis for his views, and to give at least the broad outlines of the superstructure of knowledge which has been reared above the basis of that fundamental work of his own, which has been a source of legitimate pride to himself as of appreciation by his successors and colleagues.