it- 



104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



as facts are shown to be opposed to it. Indeed, I 

 have had no choice but to act in this manner, for with 

 the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a 

 single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a 

 time to be given up or greatly modified. This has 

 naturally led me to distrust greatly deductive reason- 

 ing in the mixed sciences. On the other hand, I am 

 not very sceptical, a frame of mind which I believe 

 to be injurious to the progress of science. A good 

 deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to 

 avoid much loss of time, for I have met with not a few 

 men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred 

 from experiment or observations, which would have 

 proved directly or indirectly serviceable. 



In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I 

 have known. A gentleman (who, as I afterwards 

 heard, is a good local botanist) wrote to me from the 

 Eastern counties that the seeds or beans of the com- 

 mon field-bean had this year everywhere grown on the 

 wrong side of the pod. I wrote back, asking for 

 further information, as I did not understand what was 

 meant ; but I did not receive any answer for a very 

 long time. I then saw in two newspapers, one pub- 

 lished in Kent and the other in Yorkshire, paragraphs 

 stating that it was a most remarkable fact that "the 

 beans this year had all grown on the wrong side." So 

 I thought there must be some foundation for so general 

 a statement. Accordingly, I went to my gardener, an 

 old Kentish man, and asked him whether he had 

 heard anything about it, and he answered, " Oh, no, 

 sir, it must be a mistake, for the beans grow on the 



