38 ON SOME ASPECTS OF THE 



' That there is a property in the Basil (plant) to 

 propagate scorpions, and that by the smell of the plant 

 they are bred in the brain of man.' 



* That the elephant hath no joints, wherefore being 

 unable to lie down he sleepeth against a tree, which 

 the hunters observing do saw almost asunder, whereon 

 the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls down itself 

 and is able to rise no more.' 



Even in the present day it is astonishing how many 

 current beliefs exist in regard to natural phenomena 

 which have little or no foundation in fact ; instances 

 of such vulgar errors are familiar to us all. 



The work of those scientific men who inquired into 

 commonly-received opinions as to natural phenomena, 

 although ridiculed, was in reality one aspect of the use 

 of the scientific method, that, namely, which tests all 

 things relating to nature. 



But ridicule extended to other phases of scientific 

 work, and particularly to biological study. * There has,' 

 says the author of the Miscellanies, ' always been a ten- 

 dency for men of a meditative cast, so-called philosophers, 

 to ridicule naturalists and their occupations.' The cele- 

 brated Dr. South, in his oration at Oxford, said, with 

 reference to many members of the Royal Society of 

 his day, ' they can admire nothing except fleas, lice, and 

 themselves'. This contemptuous attitude of society is 

 most divertingly displayed by Goldsmith in one of those 

 inimitable letters which the Citizen of the World addresses 

 to his friend Fum Hoan, first president of the Ceremonial 

 Academy at Pekin : 



' 1 am amused, my dear Fum, with the labours of 

 the learned here. One shall write you a whole folio 

 on the dissection of a caterpillar. Another shall swell 

 his works with a description of the plumage on the wing 



