218 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



To this intent tlie naturalist should always have pencil 

 and note-book on his working-table, in which to record 

 every new fact, no matter how trifling it may seem at 

 the moment ; the time will come when that and other 

 facts will be the keys to unlock many a casket. Not 

 that Observation alone is, as many imagine, the potent 

 instrument of Zoology. Lists of details crowd books 

 and journals, yet these are in themselves no better than 

 the observations of Chaldean shepherds, which pro- 

 duced no Astronomy in centuries of watching. They 

 find their place in science, only as the architectm^al 

 mind disposes them in due co-ordination. ^Miat should 

 we think of a chemist who, on mere inspection of sub- 

 stances, unaided by re-agents and his balance, hoped 

 to further Chemistry ? What would lists of such 

 observation avail? And in the far more complex 

 science of Biology, how shall cursory inspection, super- 

 ficial observation, avail ? We must follow the Methods 

 which have led to certainty in the exact sciences. We 

 must render the complex facts of Life as simple as we 

 can, by processes of elimination. Experiment must go 

 hand in hand with Observation, controlling it, and 

 assuring us that we have correctly observed. Much 

 has been done, and is daily done, in this way, yet still 

 men too easily content themselves with observation, or, 

 what is equally fallacious, with anatomical deduction, 

 declaring an organ to have such and such a function, 

 merely because it resembles an organ known to have 

 the function ; when in most of these cases, direct 

 experiment would show the error of the conclusion. 



