io8 



pinnacle of ignorance as a standpoint from which to 

 instruct one's fellows. In most matters some degree 

 of knowledge is usually demanded. For instance, it 

 would be generally considered necessary before 

 attempting to classify a butterfly that one should at 

 least be able to difierentiate it from a mealworm. In 

 the science of medicine it is apparently quite 

 different. 



The same faculty of lofty contempt for ordinary 

 knowledge follows Dr. Butler even into the realms of 

 English composition. He professes to be ignorant of 

 the meaning of "other things being equal" : in fact 

 he violently shies at it, and seems to think that by its 

 use some attempt was being made to perform the 

 operation popularly known as leg pulling. But perhaps 

 this is only a mixture of modesty and humour on Dr. 

 Butler's part, because our ordinary man says that he 

 is quite familiar with the phrase and has indeed often 

 met with it, even in the purlieus of Logic and Latinity. 



The last two paragraphs in Dr. Butler's letter 

 betray a wealth of imagination which ought to put 

 our ordinary person to shame when he reflects on his 

 own deficiencies in that respect. As a matter of fact 

 a diet of " pea-meal, sattoo, or chenna " does not suit 

 insectivorous birds either in Asia or anywhere else. 

 That which we have seen stated to be used in the East 

 is some such form of vegetable food phis so7ne foriti of 

 insect, a very different thing to be sure. We cannot 

 however expect everything. Dr. Butler cannot always 

 be floating in the sublime and ethereal regions of 

 superhuman ability to lay down laws on subjects of 

 which by his own confession he is in complete 

 ignorance, and so it is quite a relief to find that he can 

 descend — as occasion demands— to the more mundane 

 expedient of what we may politely designate as the art 

 of carelessly picking one's words. 



And now we come to "experience " (or perhaps it 



