80 PLANT MORPHOLOGY 



bring to bear upon morphological theory, we must surely congratu- 

 late ourselves on being devotees to a science which is very actively 

 alive. 



But at the same time the detached cynic may find in the methods 

 of plant-morphologists, or still more sometimes in their want of 

 method, food for much critical remark. And if he put his finger upon 

 one mental process which more than another has introduced discord, 

 it would, I think, be "assumption." It may be that our science is 

 not worse than others in this respect, but I am very sure that argu- 

 ments based upon ill-founded assumption have put back the progress 

 of morphology more than anything else in our discussions. Any one 

 can find examples for himself in the literature : some of us in our own 

 writings. It remains for us who tread the difficult path of morpho- 

 logical theory to beware lest we neglect those warnings with which 

 its course is so plentifully strewn, for it is just as much the duty of a 

 scientific man to avoid blurring the issues for others by faulty argu- 

 ment, as it is to attempt to make clear to them what he himself be- 

 lieves to have been obscure. 



