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period of its extent has been, the recorded experience 

 of its effects has been incomplete. The experience, such 

 as it is, has also been a one-sided one, i.e. it has only 

 been of the use of the egg and not of its non-use. 

 The old game of " Follow my leader" comes so easy 

 and natural in our noviciate days, and we have always 

 been so afraid of trying any experiments in our later 

 stages — which is after all the only way of gaining em- 

 pirical experience— that it has occurred to but very few 

 of us to strike out new lines of enquiry for ourselves. 

 And when from time to time some would-be bolder 

 spirit than the rest has left the beaten track, it has been 

 with fearful steps and quavering mind, only to rush 

 back in dire alarm on hearing the slightest rustle in a 

 bush to the narrow way of our comparatively recent 

 forefathers. The result is that while every science 

 and every art known to mankind has enlarged its out- 

 look, improved its methods, and increased our power 

 of guiding the forces of Nature, and while with the 

 rest the science and art of Medicine as applied to 

 humans has progressed by leaps and bounds, we are 

 still content, where our birds are concerned, to crawl 

 slowly along the paths laid down in the days of 

 the densest scientific darkness, those of the later 

 European middle ages, whose chief claims to remem- 

 brance are connected with the persecution of all who 

 attempted to lead their brethren to the paths of light. 

 Of the non-use of egg we ourselves as a class know 

 nothing ; of its iise we almost daily see the results, 

 but without any sense of the connection involved ; 

 we ascribe these results to anything and everything 

 but the right one — each of us to something different 

 from his neighbour's choice ; and finally with one 

 voice acclaim " Experience " ! 



If mere length of one-sided observation is a 

 factor that makes for comparative validity of con- 

 clusions, (and I suppose that even the most " ex- 



