346 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



out his rule and square, shuts one eye, and 

 says, " That statement is not in exact accord- 

 ance with the facts in the case. Mr. Dadant 

 is an unfair man." Possibly no fault would 

 have been found with the sentence if Mr. 

 Root had said, " While you were incorrect in 

 your statement, Mr. Dadant, the error you 

 made was unfair to yourself, and that's a good 

 deal better than if you had erred on the other 

 side." 



LOOSE USE OF LANGUAGE. 



But what in the world made him put up his 

 rule and square before he penned the last sen- 

 tence of the paragraph in which he so care- 

 fully measures Mr. Root's language ? That 

 last sentence reads, "An injurious statement 

 about a hive one favors is even more liable to 

 injury than one about a hive one opposes." 

 One statement is more liable to injury than 

 another? To what injury is the statement 

 liable? I don't really suppose Mr. Taylor 

 means what he says ; but when he insists so 

 critically that others shall say exactly what 

 they mean, why doesn't he make exact state- 

 ments himself ? 



Marengo, 111., Feb. 28. 



[Mr. Taylor's reply:] 



I highly appreciate the privilege of having 

 my reply to the above article from Dr. Miller 

 appear along with it in the same issue, for 

 thus a reply can be made much briefer, and 

 at the same time much really incurable injus- 

 tice prevented. I am also especially glad to 

 appear in Gleanings, because many readers 

 who have otherwise no opportunity may thus 

 get acquainted at first hands with the bold bad 

 man who writes criticisms for the Review. 



It seems to me the foregoing criticisms of the 

 doctor's must have been written in extreme 

 haste, for in no other way can I reasonably 

 account for the numerous instances in which 

 he either fails to catch my meaning or else 

 fails to express himself clearly. Thus he says 

 that " I take to task the editor of Gleanings 

 for changing his mind." Not at all, not at 

 all ; but for changing his mind hastily and 

 without due consideration. Quite a different 

 thing ; and, moreover, I think this idea was 

 expressed very clearly and with great promi- 

 nence. Again he says he does not see the 

 application of my sentence: "The cause of 

 truth is advanced by careful, cautious, sober 

 loyalty to it ; " and it is quite clear that he 

 does not, for a little later he requotes, saying, 

 " It is true that ' the cause of truth is advanc- 

 ed by loyalty to it,' " and argues from it as if 

 the two sentences were identical in meaning. 

 As I wrote it it is no doubt generally true, and 

 it may assist the doctor to see the application 

 of it if he will permit me to say that his mis- 

 quotation, which he affirms to be true, is by 

 no means necessarily true. Careless, impul- 

 sive, indiscreet loyalty to truth may prove 

 very disastrous. I was inveighing against 

 hasty changes of opinion ; and while such 

 changes are quite consistent with a certain 

 kind of loyalty to truth, it is not careful, 

 cautious, sober loyalty to it. Then in the 

 third paragraph he says, "Now comes Mr. 



Taylor with new light on the case, and says 

 that boiling water and boiling honey are very 

 different things as to their heat." I think the 

 reader who had no opportunity to examine 

 what I actually said would get a very errone- 

 ous idea of my language from the way the 

 doctor puts it. I made no such positive state- 

 ment. What I wrote amounted to little more 

 than a supposition, supported, to be sure, by 

 what seemed to me to be arguments that de- 

 served careful consideration. 



One more instance : In the paragraph re- 

 lating to Mr. Dadant the doctor repeats the 

 vicious trick he indulged in in treating of 

 loyalty to truth of making a partial and in- 

 adequate quotation or statement some time 

 after having made a full one. Thus he says, 

 referring to me, " He says it seems strange 

 to him that Mr. Dadant should be commended 

 for fairness." I made no such statement as 

 that, nor one that would bear any such con- 

 struction; and the way the doctor puts it, it is 

 well calculated to give an entirely wrong im- 

 pression to any one who had not the article 

 quoted from before him. These matters are 

 outside the main questions, but they ought 

 not to be overlooked, and I must still mention 

 one or two other incidental matters. 



There are certain coarse insinuations found 

 in the doctor's article in such expressions as, 

 "which goes to show that Mr. Taylor's dis- 

 cernment is sadly in need of tinkering." " In- 

 stead of stubbornly holding on to an error, as 

 Mr. Taylor is too much inclined to do." " It's 

 a case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde." Such, 

 though the doctor indulges in them, are not 

 to be recommended ; but they are to be par- 

 doned in his case, since he is not often guilty 

 in that respect except when he is conscious of 

 dealing with the blood thirsty monster of the 

 Review. Nevertheless, I feel that in such 

 indulgence he is hardly doing himself justice. 



Again, in conclusion the doctor writes a 

 rarely entertaining paragraph about the 

 " Loose Use of Language," aimed at me, all 

 founded upon the substitution of one letter 

 for another by the printer. Read it " injure," 

 brother. 



Now a word on the main points : As to the 

 matter of my criticism of the editor's hasty 

 change of opinion in the two points the doc- 

 tor refers to, I am not sure the doctor has a 

 correct comprehension of it, and I am quite 

 sure his readers can not have unless they have 

 read my original criticism, so I may be per- 

 mitted an attempt to make it clear. For the 

 sake of brevity I shall try to make it answer 

 my purpose to refer to only one of the two 

 points; viz., that concerning foul brood, and 

 to that, only by way of answer to the question 

 the doctor propounds in the third paragraph 

 of his foregoing article; namely, " If he was a 

 reasonable being with the light he had, what 

 else could he do? " In my original criticism 

 I said, " How different is the scientific attitude 

 as shown in the American Bee Journal, page 

 18, where Prof. Cook says, 'I referred above 

 to certain acorn-infesting larvae that secrete 

 nectar. I have never seen them, but have 

 often heard of such — principally from Mis- 

 souri — so often that I think they may be more 



