DEGENERATION. 



it is his business to record, and upon which he 

 bases his conclusions. It is for this reason that 

 he who would bring to the notice of laymen some 

 matter which at the moment is occupying the atten- 

 tion of biological students, must appear to be unduly 

 devoted to speculation — hypothesis — to support which 

 he cannot produce the facts themselves but merely 

 the imperfect substitutes afforded by pictures. It 

 is perhaps not altogether a matter for regret that 

 there should be in one great branch of science, as 

 there is in biology, so very marked a disproportion 

 between the facilities for demonstrating facts and 

 the general interest attaching to the theories con- 

 nected with those facts. We may be thankful that 

 at the present day we are not likely, in the domain 

 of biology, to make the mistake (which has been 

 made under other circumstances) of substituting the 

 mere inspection and cataloguing of natural objects 

 for that more truly scientific attitude which consists 

 in assicfninsf the facts which come under our obser- 

 vation to their causes, or, in other words, to their 

 places in the order of nature. Though we may 

 rightly object to the attempt which is sometimes 

 made to decry the modern teachings of biology 



