TRANSACTIONS 
OF THE 
SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 
By J. ArtHur Tyomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of 
Natural History, Marischal College, University of Aberdeen. 
(Read 6th April 1899. ) 
Ir I understand aright, one of the chief aims of our Society 
is to promote the culture of the scientific mood. We 
search after new facts and new truths, but our main 
business here is rather, I think, to appreciate what has 
been already gained. It is surely more important that we 
should seek to understand the general geology of Arthur 
Seat than that we should, after great pains, discover there 
the trace of a mineral not previously recorded in the 
district; more important that we should understand the 
general life of birds than that we should detect the 
occasional presence of a straggler in the Lothians; more 
important that we should have some clear ideas in regard 
to, say, plant associations, than expend our energies in 
forming an opinion as to the species of bramble. Not that 
we would overlook the importance and interest of the 
unrecorded mineral, the bird-stragglers, the species of 
bramble, or of any item of fact, but the recording of new 
facts is hardly our primary business here. Our chief aim, 
I think, is to help one another to unlock the doors of the 
VOL. I. II 
