Introductory. 3 



what may be termed the Bugbear of Speculation. Fully 

 awakened to the dangers of web-spinning from the 

 ever-fertile resources of their own inner consciousness, 

 naturalists became more and more abandoned to the 

 idea that their science ought to consist in a mere 

 observation of facts, or tabulation of phenomena, 

 without attempt at theorizing upon their philosophical 

 import. If the facts and phenomena presented any 

 such import, that was an affair for men of letters to 

 deal with ; but, as men of science, it was their duty to 

 avoid the seductive temptations of the world, the flesh, 

 and the devil, in the form of speculation, deduction, 

 and generalization. 



I do not allege that this ideal of natural history was 

 either absolute or universal ; but there can be no 

 question that it was both orthodox and general. 

 Even Linnaeus was express in his limitations of true 

 scientific work in natural history to the collecting and 

 arranging of species of plants and animals. In ac- 

 cordance with this view, the status of a botanist or a 

 zoologist was estimated by the number of specific 

 names, natural habitats, &c., which he could retain in 

 his memory, rather than by any evidences which he 

 might give of intellectual powers in the way of con- 

 structive thought. At the most these powers might 

 legitimately exercise themselves only in the direction 

 of taxonomic work ; and if a Hales, a Haller, or a 

 Hunter obtained any brilliant results in the way of 

 observation and experiment, their merit was taken to 

 consist in the discovery of facts per se : not in any 

 endeavours they might make in the way of combining 

 their facts under general principles. Even as late in 

 the day as Cuvier this ideal was upheld as the strictly 

 B a 



