IN THE SHETLANDS 79 
Too little, I think, has been done in this way. The 
imaginative element is one without which all things 
starve. In natural history it is particularly wanted, 
and would have. particularly good effects. Most 
naturalists think only of what is the rule in any 
animal’s habits—exceptions they do not care about 
—yet, looked at in a certain way, they are still more 
interesting. Moreover, there is a great tendency to 
see an animal do just what it is supposed to do, and 
this tendency does not conduce to keen and interested 
observation. But the future modification of any 
species must depend largely upon deviations, on the 
part of individuals belonging to it, from its more 
ordinary line of conduct, so that any man who should 
wish rationally to speculate on this future must be- 
come, perforce, a patient noticer of such deviations, 
and, therefore, a great observer of the animal in 
question. 
To support a theory is a great motive towards 
the collection of facts, yet a number of small- 
minded people are always deprecating what they call 
“mere theory” in field natural history, and crying 
out for facts only. Theory, however, is a soil in 
which facts grow, and there is a greater crop from 
a false one than from none at all. The history of 
astrology and alchemy are instances of this—if, indeed, 
the latter, in its fundamental belief, does not turn out 
to have been true after all. When have men been 
much interested in facts—apart from mere gaping 
wonder or amusement—-except in connection with 
