INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 37 
Again, one who noticed spots on the sun became convinced 
of the error of his eyes, because Aristotle had somewhere 
written ‘‘ the face of the sun is immaculate.” 
This childlike faith in authority not only excused people 
from personal experiment, but led to the curious idea that 
practical investigation was unworthy of the philosopher, and 
even up to the first half of the nineteenth century a knowledge 
of such things as physiology and anatomy was regarded as the 
private property of medical men. It was thought a little 
coarse for any but a doctor to know a few simple facts about 
the circulation of the blood, and such like. 
The cosmologists despised description; we are wont to 
confuse it with interpretation. We are still cosmologists at 
heart, but with the difference that if the older naturalists 
might be said to solve the universe from the depths of the 
armchairs in the parlour, we, on the other hand, may be often 
accused of taking our armchairs into the field. 
To-day, of course, there are several departments of natural 
history which deal almost exclusively with description, as, 
for instance, pure geography and petrography, and the syste- 
matic sides of botany, zoology, and paleontology. Philosophy, 
on the other hand, concerns itself entirely with interpretation, 
but .cientific, or, as we say, “ natural philosophy,” works 
from a basis of observed facts. 
The intelligent worker in the field of natural history 
combines description and interpretation, thereby proving 
himself a natural philosopher, and if when stepping beyond the 
realm of description he is entering dangerous territory where 
guides are few and mistakes are easy, he may console himself 
with the knowledge that many mistakes are avoidable if only 
one will tread warily and look before leaping ; and that if he 
stand: to take the wrong path, he also stands to get somewhere 
interesting in the end. Jt has been wisely said that if you 
confine yourself to description you cannot go far wrong, but, 
then, you cannot go far. 
The error one invariably makes when entering the field of 
natural philosophy is the one already alluded to, of confusing 
-description with interpretation. One is generally led into 
this mistake by the influence of some theory at the back of 
