PREFACE 



MOST of the following essays have appeared in the 

 pages of the Quarterly Review, and I am greatly 

 indebted to the editor and to the proprietor of that 

 periodical for permission to reprint them. The article 

 on 'The Infinite Torment of Flies' is an address I 

 delivered before the British Association at Pretoria 

 in 1905, and the eighth essay appeared in Science 

 Progress. 



As far as possible I have tried to avoid the use of 

 long words, and thus escape the censure of recent 

 critics in the Times ; but I fear I have not altogether 

 succeeded, and my excuse must be that with new 

 discoveries new conceptions arise, and these con- 

 ceptions require new names, or we cannot talk or 

 write about them with any precision. 



The essay dealing with zebras and hybrids was the 

 first to be written, and appeared before the rediscovery 

 of Mendel's remarkable work, and must be regarded 

 as a pre-Mendelian contribution to a subject which 

 has recently, in connexion with the Deceased Wife's 

 Sister Bill, again aroused attention. Had it been 

 written later the language and the attitude taken 

 would have been modified by recent research. 



In the inquiry into the aims and finance of Cambridge 

 University the only essay which does not deal with 



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