4 NATURAL SCIENCE. January, 



agree, or, at all events, he is not ready to swap horses yet. While 

 realising the value of Statistical Zoology, of Experimental Embry- 

 ology, and other new methods, we, too, are not inclined to discard 

 either morphological or systematic investigation. Indeed, we con- 

 sider that morphology is only just beginning to see the size and shape 

 of the field that it has to till. But we trust that this paper may open 

 a discussion of much interest and value. 



" A Plague o' both your Houses ! " 



After all, what do we know of the plan of the universe ? We 

 do not even know that there is a plan. Our need still is for facts. 

 And the immediate value of any method or any theory is its incite- 

 ment to collect and to discover fresh facts. Within the limits of 

 biology we seem to see many hypotheses at present incapable of proof, 

 but many methods of research all capable of advancing knowledge. 

 We would suggest that the present is not the time for speculation on 

 the merits or failings of Natural Selection or an}' other theory as to 

 origin of species. A truce to library papers for ten or twenty years ! 

 Meanwhile let those naturalists for whom the subject has any fascin- 

 ation forget their pet theories, and set to work. They may find a 

 pattern in a familiar series of green-bound books published by Murray, 

 Perhaps at the end of the suggested period it may be possible to 

 formulate important results based on experimental evidence, say, for 

 instance, whether variation is indefinite or definite ; to understand 

 something of correlated variation and of the extent to which it must 

 be considered as a factor in the problem, and so on, and so on. 

 Perhaps we may seem no nearer the solution of these and similar 

 questions. But a great deal of useful work will have been done, our 

 stock of knowledge will have been increased, and we shall not have to 

 lament the waste of valuable time on empty discussion. We are 

 urged to these remarks by a paper read at a recent meeting of the 

 Linnean Society, entitled " Does Natural Selection play any part 

 in the Origin of Species among plants?" In the opinion of its 

 reader it did not, the key of the whole problem being the reaction of 

 plant and environment. This view is, of course, not a new one. Nor 

 were any new experiments advanced in support of it. The chief 

 evidence put forward lay in the production of several of our useful 

 vegetables, like the parsnip and carrot, from a wild plant by culti- 

 vation. The same and similar facts, in the opinion of many who, 

 following Darwin, find in Natural Selection a conceivable hypothesis, 

 point in the opposite direction. In view of such marked disagree- 

 ment it is manifest that existing evidence is insufficient. There is 

 nothing for it but to continue the patient plodding investigations 

 initiated by the author of the " Origin of Species " and (let us not 

 forget) of all those other works choke-full of experiment, ingeniously 

 planned and carefully carried out. 



