MENTAL QUALITIES. IO5 



wrong side only on leap-year, and this is not leap- 

 year." I then asked him how they grew in common 

 years and how on leap-years, but soon found that he 

 knew absolutely nothing of how they grew at any 

 time, but he stuck to his belief. 



After a time I heard from my first informant, who, 

 with many apologies, said that he should not have 

 written to me had he not heard the statement from 

 several intelligent farmers ; but that he had since 

 spoken again to every one of them, and not one knew 

 in the least what he had himself meant. So that here 

 a belief if indeed a statement with no definite idea 

 attached to it can be called a belief had spread over 

 almost the whole of England without any vestige of 

 evidence. 



I have known in the course of my life only three 

 intentionally falsified statements, and one of these 

 may have been a hoax (and there have been several 

 scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American 

 Agricultural Journal. It related to the formation in 

 Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing 

 of distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen 

 to know are sterile together), and the author had 

 the impudence to state that he had corresponded 

 with me, and that I had been deeply impressed with 

 the importance of his result. The article was sent to 

 me by the editor of an English Agricultural Journal, 

 asking for my opinion before republishing it. 



A second case was an account of several varieties, 

 raised by the author from several species of Primula, 

 which had spontaneously yielded a full complement of 



