104 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



of these Caryatides of imbecility. One was a well- 

 washed middle-aged man, who may have been a senti- 

 mental tailor ; he rested his elbow on the chair which 

 served as a pulpit, and, inclining his head, allowed his 

 finger to indent his cheek. The other was a short, 

 tawny, grey-haired man, who must have been a cobbler 

 troubled with metaphysical misgivings. It is to be 

 presumed that they were edified by the preacher's 

 rhapsodies and repetitions ; the audience was utterly 

 unimpressed. Indeed there was what P. called a 

 troublesome foreground of boys and girls, fighting, 

 laughing, jeering, beating tin kettles, and otherwise 

 exhibiting the moderate sensibility of their fibre reli- 

 gieux ; but the background of men and women (of 

 course with babies) was more orderly. They listened 

 in respectful silence, but with no appearance of sym- 

 pathy. A grey-haired fisherman standing beside me 

 said to a woman at his left : " He doesn't speak accord- 

 ing to Scripter. Some things is according to Scripter ; 

 but some is not." He spoke in a quiet assured tone of 

 authority, and his was the only criticism I heard. 

 . This is a digression, and has only a remote connec- 

 tion with the imperfect logic of zoologists, a subject on 

 which, if I had greater authority, I would discourse at 

 length. Not that I suppose zoologists to be less 

 logical than other men ; but simply that the Science 

 of Life being so much more diflicult than any of the 

 Physical Sciences, it is more in need of a rigorous code 

 of principles. The Astronomer, the Physicist, and the 

 Chemist, are subject to restraints which the Biologist 



