September 17, 1903] 



NATURE 



483 



him to feel and appreciate these proportions and relation- 

 ships so well as if he had studied and collected in the field 

 and gained a personal interest in them. Besides this the 

 conclusions drawn in the field are the crystalline and washed 

 residuum, so to speak, left on the mind after the handling 

 of dozens of specimens, weathered and unweathered, and 

 the seeing them in a host of different lights and aspects. 

 The rock is hammered and puzzled over and its relations 

 studied until some conclusion is arrived at which bears the 

 test of application to all the facts observed in the field. 



Again, once a palaeontologist is divorced from the field 

 he loses the significance of minute time variations, the 

 proportion of aberrant to normal forms, and the value of 

 naked-eye characteristics which can be " spotted " in the 

 field. Huxley once asked for a palaeontologist who was no 

 geologist ; I venture to think we have now had enough 

 of them. What we want above all at the present time is 

 the recognition of such characters as have enabled our field 

 palaeontologists to zone by means of the graptolites, the 

 ammonites, and the echinids, so that every rock system we 

 possess may be subdivided with the same minuteness and 

 trustworthiness as the Ordovician, Silurian, and Jurassic 

 systems, and the Chalk. 



If this is once done the biological results will take care 

 of themselves, and we may feel perfect confidence that new 

 laws of biological succession and evolution will result from 

 such work, as indeed they are now doing — laws which could 

 never be reached from first principles, but could only come 

 out in the hands of those to whom time and place were 

 the factors by which they were most impressed. It is only 

 by field work that we shall ever get rid of the confusion 

 which has been inevitable from the supposed existence of 

 such so-called species as Orthis caligramma, Atrypa 

 reticularis, and Prodiictus giganteus. 



As for the geological results, it is only necessary to read 

 the excellent and workmanlike Address delivered to this 

 Section at Liverpool in 1896 by Mr. Marr to realise how 

 many problems of succession and structure, of distribution 

 and causation, of ancient geography and modern landscape, 

 are still awaiting solution by the application of minute and 

 exact zonal researches. 



On the other hand it goes without saying that the more 

 a field geologist knows of his rocks and fossils the better 

 will his stratigraphical work become ; but this is too obvious 

 to require more than stating. 



Geology, again, is of value as a recreative science, one 

 which can be enjoyed when cycling, walking, or climbing, 

 even when sailing or travelling by rail. Indeed it is diffi- 

 cult to find a place in which to treat the confirmed geologist 

 if you wish to make him a " total abstainer." There are 

 others than thoso who must make use of their science in 

 their professions, those in need of a hobby, those interested 

 in natural scenery, veterans who have seen much and now 

 have leisure and means to see more, and those fortunate 

 ones who have not to earn their bread by the sweat of their 

 brain or brow. Many of these have done and are doing 

 good work for us, and many more would find real pleasure 

 in doing so if only they had been inoculated in those early 

 days when impressions sink deep. Mr. A. S. Reid, who 

 has had much and fruitful experience in teaching, tells me 

 that he has often seen seed planted in barren ground at 

 school spring up and grow and blossom as a country- 

 holiday recreation after schooldays, or bear the good fruit 

 of solid research after lying dormant for many years. 



We may next look upon Geology as an educational 

 medium from quite a different point of view. If more than 

 half the work of the man of science is the collection of 

 fact, and of actual fact as opposed to the result of the 

 personal equation, Geology is perhaps the very best train- 

 ing-ground. There are such hosts of facts to be still re- 

 corded, so many erroneous observations to be corrected, 

 and so much hope of extending observations on already 

 recorded facts, that there is plenty of work even for the 

 man who can snatch but limited leisure from other pursuits 

 and the one who is a collector of fact and nothing else, 

 as well as those 



" under whose command 

 Is earth and earth's, and in their hand 

 Is Nature like an op«n book." 



NO. 1768, VOL. 68] 



But in the collection of facts a wise and careful selection 

 is constantly necessary in order to pick out from the multi- 

 tude those which are of exceptional value and importance 

 in the construction of hypotheses. Nature, it is true, can- 

 not lie ; she is a perfectly honest but expert witness, and 

 it takes an astonishing amount of acute cross-examination 

 to elicit the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

 truth. 



There is no science which needs such a variety of observ- 

 ations as Field Geology. When we remember that Sedg- 

 wick and Darwin visited Cwm Glas and carried away no 

 recollection of the features which now shout " glaciation " 

 to everyone who enters the Cwm, it is easy to see how 

 alert must be the eyes and how agile the mind of the man 

 who has to carry a dozen problems in his mind at once, 

 and must be on the look-out for evidence with regard to all 

 of them if he would work out the structure of a difficult 

 country ; and who is not only looking out for facts to test 

 his own hypothesis, but wishes to observe so accurately 

 that if his hypothesis gives way even at the eleventh hour 

 his facts are ready to suggest and test its successor. There 

 is no class of men so well up in what may be called observ- 

 ational natural history generally as the practised field 

 geologist, because he never knows at what moment some 

 chance observation — a mound, a spring, a flower, a feature, 

 even a rabbit-hole or a shadow — may be of service to him. 

 Not only should he know his country in its every feature 

 and every aspect, but he must have, and in most cases soon 

 acquires, that remarkable instinct, which can only be 

 denoted as an " eye for a country," with which generally 

 goes a naturalist's knowledge of its plants and of its birds, 

 beasts, and fishes. 



At the present time many educationists are in favour of 

 teaching only the. experimental sciences to the exclusion 

 of those which collect their facts by observation. This 

 attitude may do some good to Geology in compelling us to 

 pay more attention to that side of our science which has 

 been better cultivated hitherto in France than in our own 

 country. But whether we think of education as the 

 equipping of a scientific man for his future career or as the 

 training of the mind to encounter the problems of life, we 

 must admit that it would be as wrong to ignore one of the 

 two ways only of collecting fact as it would be to teach 

 deductive reasoning to the exclusion of that by induction. 

 Indeed this is understating the case, for in the vast 

 majority of the problems which confront us in everyday life 

 the solution can only be reached if an accurate grasp of 

 the facts can be obtained from observation. The training 

 of the mind solely by means of experiments carefully de- 

 signed to eliminate all confusing and collateral elements 

 savours too much of " milk for babes " and too little of 

 " strong meat for men." 



Mr. Teall in his masterly Address to the Geological 

 Society in 1901 pointed out " that the state of advancement 

 of a science must be measured, not by the number of facts 

 collected, but by the number of facts coordinated." Theory, 

 consistent, comprehensive, tested, verified, is the life-blood 

 of our science as of any other. It is what history is to 

 politics, what morals are to manners, and what faith is to 

 religion. 



It is almost impossible to collect facts at all without 

 carrying a working hypothesis to string them on. It is 

 easy to follow Darwin's advice and speculate freely; the 

 speculation may be right, and if wrong it will be weeded 

 out by new facts and criticism, while the speculative in- 

 stinct will suggest others. In hypothesis there will always 

 be an ultimate survival of the fittest. 



And it is not only easy but absolutely necessary, because 

 in Geology, more perhaps than in any other science, hypo- 

 theses are like steps in a staircase : each one must be 

 mounted before the next one can be reached ; and if you 

 have no intention of coming back again that way, it does 

 not matter if you destroy each step when you have made 

 use of it. Every new hypothesis has something fresh to 

 teach, and nearly all have some element of untruth to be 

 ultimately eliminated. But each one is a stage, and a 

 necessary stage, in progress. 



In physics and in chemistry the chief difficulties are those 

 which surround the making of experiments. When these 



