ANALOGY. IO3 



" My attention, " he said, " was now thoroughly 

 aroused, for I could hardly doubt that the dif- 

 ference between the two beds was due to the 

 one being the offspring of crossed and the other 

 of self-fertilized flowers." After the effects 

 of cross- and self-fertilization had been thus 

 thrust upon him, he proceeded to make the 

 exhaustive examination that ran through many 

 years, and finally filled a volume. He foresaw 

 the meaning of the adaptations for cross-fer- 

 tilization and the character of the results, but 

 was deterred by a false analogy from making 

 the observations to which a careful study of the 

 facts by themselves would have infallibly led 

 him; and was finally driven to the subject 

 again by the empirical observation of the facts 

 that he had anticipated by reasoning. It may 

 seem strange that the very consequences which 

 theory led him to expect had to be twice forced 

 upon the attention of one who was so quick to 

 seize Nature's suggestions, before he could be 

 brought to investigate them. But the strange- 

 ness of such an intellectual phenomenon is all 

 due to the afterthought. Even in the sciences 

 that are most rigidly deductive it is a common 

 thing for the investigator to stumble indirectly 

 upon results which he might have foreseen or 

 often did more or less perfectly foresee. 



