S'_ Babbottr, Tka Cost . Roosevelt rs. Tl LJ*n. 



as the fact that the world is round is o( being believed now. Again 

 " more recently it [common sense] carefully protected the consump- 

 tive from 'night air.' " Here Mr. Allen is unfortunately unable to 

 distinguish between superstition and common sense. Some o( us 

 have had great-great-grandmothers who were so unfortunate as to 

 have lived in Salem. There they were hanged as witches, and yet 

 this somewhat common practise can hardly he laid to the door of 

 the 'common sense' oi those times, but rather to superstition, 

 which is. as yet. often persistent. We absolutely disagree in be- 

 lieving that common sense is '* still an obstacle to the spread oi 

 scientific education." We consider it science's most powerful ally 

 as superstition is her worst enemy We agree heartily with what 

 is said regarding the "arrogant attitude he [Thayer] seems to take 

 in regard to the relative claims of the artist and the biologist to he 

 entitled to form an opinion on the subject of coloration,- even more 

 prejudicial, if less irritating, is the shall 1 eall it cocksure? — way 

 in which mere conjectures are stated as facts." We also agree with 

 Mr. Allen absolutely that a. fair attitude towards Mr. Thayer must 

 begin by admitting that he is an expert eolorist. and that his per- 

 ception oi color and the value oi light and shadow is probably as far 

 ahead o( the average scientific person's perception as night is from 

 day; yet we must remember that Mr. Thayer knows nothing of 

 any other than human color perception, ami his haphazard assump- 

 tions that mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects see in the same way 

 as human beings do. is just what grates most harshly upon the in- 

 telligence oi the average scientific person. 



We read later " 1 have detected in Roosevelt's paper and the reply 

 to Thayer's criticism, appended thereto, upwards oi fifty instances 

 of misquotations, misrepresentations and perversions of Thayer's 

 statements, and pieces of faulty reasoning in matters o\ detail." 

 These are serions charges, but we must point out that the offences 

 vary greatly in magnitude. It is a great pity that Mr. Allen did 

 not state how many misquotations and how many pieees of 'faulty 

 reasoning in matters of detail' he found. A misquotation would 

 probably he wilful, while a hit of 'faulty reasoning in a matter of 

 detail' might he an instance of where Mr. Roosevelt's opinion was 

 at least worth as much as that of either Mr. Thayer or Mr. Allen. 



Later Mr. Allen says, "Then, on page 162 we are told that the 



