POPULAR FALLACIES AND COMMON ERRORS 179 



It is now rather more than two centuries and a half 

 since Sir Thomas Browne published his " Pse^udodoxia 

 Epidemica," or " Vulgar Errors," a curious and interest- 

 ing work which throws much light on some of the extraor- 

 dinary beliefs of his day. The last edition that was issued 

 during his life now lies before me, and it is interesting to 

 note the absurdities which seem to have been generally 

 accepted by even the best educated people of his time. 

 But most of them have been discarded owing to the in- 

 crease and diffusion of knowledge in natural history and 

 the physical sciences. A few, however, still remain, and 

 some brief notes on those which are most prominent can 

 hardly fail to interest the readers of this book. 



THAT MOST GREAT DISCOVERIES HAVE BEEN 

 MADE BY ACCIDENT 



|OTHING appeals more strongly to the mind 

 of the average man than accounts of great 

 results which have been achieved by means 

 which were apparently totally inadequate to 

 effect the purpose intended. When he is told that Sir 

 Isaac Newton made some of his great discoveries by means 

 of a child's toy the soap bubble he is not only inter- 

 ested but amazed, forgetting the long course of deep 

 mathematical study which enabled Newton to derive such 

 important conclusions from such apparently trivial phenom- 

 ena. And there is a good story told of two old ladies who 

 lived opposite the great mathematician and who after 

 watching him for some time came to the conclusion that 



