X ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 293 



physiology, and then to study deA^elopment. I am 

 sorry to say he was very much displeased, as people 

 often are with good advice. Notwithstanding this 

 discouraging result, I venture, as a parting word, 

 to repeat the suggestion, and to say to all the more 

 or less acute lay and clerical "■ paper-philoso- 

 phers '' * who venture into the regions of biologi- 

 cal controversy — Get a little sound, thorough, prac- 

 tical, elementary instruction in biology. 



* Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the 

 Baconian method. I beg them therefore to lay to heart 

 these two weighty sayings of the herald of Modern Sci- 

 ence : — 



"Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones 

 ex verbis, verba notionum tessera3 sunt. Itaque si notiones 

 ipStie {id quod basis rei est) confusiB sint et temere a rebus 

 abstract^e, nihil in lis qu;e superstruuntur est flrmitudinis." 

 — Novum Orgcmoji, ii. i4. 



"Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa 

 levitate ita indulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos et in 

 libro Job et aliis scripturis sacris, philosophiam naturalem 

 fundare conhei sint ; inter vivos qucBrentes mortua." — 

 Jbid, 65. 



