FASHION IN SCIENCE 113 



one another in order to ascertain whether the 

 bias they are giving to aspirants to research is 

 never in the direction of one of these scientific 

 culs de sac. Thirty years ago it may have been 

 legitimate to aspire to elucidate the course of 

 evolution by detailed and minute comparison of 

 the morphology of plants. We know to-day that 

 the aspiration will not be realised in this manner. 

 Again some critics might urge that historical 

 research into the priority of rival specific names 

 is absorbing but is not science; that it is merely 

 an elegant accomplishment like the Italian hand- 

 writing and the ready swooning habit of the 

 ladies of an earlier century. Though some might 

 maintain that all the elaborate work on the demarca- 

 tion of the germ-layers of plants has resulted in a 

 permanent enrichment of science others would be 

 found to hold that the work led nowhither and must 

 all be done again in the style in which zoologists 

 are doing it and with the object of defining the 

 parental contributions to the dual individual. 



It is not with the object of exciting controversy 

 that these illustrations are put forward ; but rather 

 to draw attention to the need for a conference 

 between botanists on the present trend of the 

 science. In the mean time we might all read a 

 little of Voltaire as a corrective to the optimism 

 of Pope. 



The function of pure science is to pursue useful 

 knowledge; the duty of the leaders of science is 



S. S. N. 8 



