276 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



them just enough to help them to hit upon the 

 answer. Then he would give them an unsymmet- 

 rical flower, like the pelargonium or the garden 

 geranium, which, on picking to pieces, they would 

 discover to be formed on the same general plan. 

 Then would come the daisy and dandelion, where 

 the outer green envelope and the little dust-bags 

 are not so easy to find. Then he would call at- 

 tention to the spiral arrangement of leaves ; the 

 overlapping of sepals in the rose ; and the alter- 

 nance of parts ; and from this to Goethe's mag- 

 nificent generalizations there would be but a step, 

 and that a step easy to be taken. 



Taught in this way, whatever flower a boy sees, 

 after a few lessons, he looks at with interest, as modi- 

 fying the view of flowers he has attained to. He is 

 tempted by his discoveries : he is on the verge of the 

 unknown, and perpetually transferring to the known. 

 All that he sees finds a place in his theories, and in turn 

 reacts upon them, for his theories are growing. He is 

 fairly committed to the struggle in the vast field of ob- 

 servation, and he learns that the test of a theory is its 

 power of including facts. He learns that he must use 

 his eyes and his reason, and that then he is equipped 

 with all that is necessary for discovering truth. He 

 learns that he is capable of judging of other people's 

 views, and of forming an opinion of his own. He learns 



