1 6 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



this idea, or that their fathers considered it a scientific 

 heresy to be condemned rather than seriously discussed." 



For those who are not naturalists or men of science 

 it is an object-lesson of the highest importance, that the 

 speculations and observations which have led to the 

 general acceptance of a new view as to the origin of 

 the species of birds, butterflies, and flowers in itself 

 apparently a matter of no consequence to human life 

 and progress should have necessarily led to a new 

 epoch in philosophy, and in the higher state-craft; in 

 fact, to the establishment of the scientific knowledge of 

 life as the one sure guide and determining factor of civilisa- 

 tion. How to breed a healthy, capable race of men, 

 how to preserve such a race, how to educate and to train 

 it, so that its best qualities of mind and body may be 

 brought to activity and perfection this is what Darwin- 

 ism can teach us, and will teach us when the great subjects 

 of inheritance and of variation are more fully investigated 

 by the aid of public funds, and when the human mind 

 has been as carefully examined and its laws as well 

 ascertained, as are those of the human body. There is 

 no reason for delay ; no excuse for it. For two thousand 

 years the learned men of Europe debated as to whether 

 this or that place was the site of ancient Troy, or whether 

 there ever was such a place at all. At last (only twenty- 

 five years ago) a retired man of business, named Schliemann, 

 had a "happy thought" it was not the thought of a 

 learned pedant, but of a scientific investigator. He said, 

 "Let us go and see." And at the expense of a few 

 thousand pounds he went and found Troy and Mycenae, 

 and revealed " dis-covered " the whole matter. That 

 was the most tremendous and picturesque triumph of the 

 scientific method over mere talk and pretended historical 

 learning which has ever been seen since human record 

 has existed. It ought to be told to every boy and girl, 



