100 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



proof of its having the structure or properties of an eye ; 

 we are allowed to assume the existence of nerves, where no 

 trace of a nerve is discernible ; we are allowed to di-ag in 

 " electricity/' or the "will," as efficient causes of anything 

 we do not understand ; and we fill Text-books and Treatises 

 with errors which give way before the first sceptic who 

 investigates them. 



We are very sheep in our gregariousness in error. When 

 one bold or stupid mutton takes a leap, all leap after him. 

 It is rare to find men doubting facts, still rarer to find them 

 doubting whether the facts be correctly co-ordinated. Our 

 books are crowded with unexamined statements, which we 

 never think of examining. Do we not all believe that the 

 magnificent Cleopatra, regardless of expense, dissolved in her 

 wine-cup a pearl of great price, as if it had been a lump of 

 sugar ? Is not the " fact " familiar to every one ? Yet, if 

 you test it, you will find the fact to be that pearls are 7iot 

 soluble in wine ; the most powerful vinegar attacks them 

 but very slowly, and never entirely dissolves them, for the 

 organic matter remains behind, in the shape of a spongy 

 mass larger than the original pearl. 



" Forewarned, forearmed." Students once having their 

 attention called to the necessity of scepticism in Zoology, 

 will soon find abundant occasion for its exercise. AVe should 

 as much as possible keep the mind in a state of loose moor- 

 ing.s, not firmly anchoring on any ground, unless our charts 

 are full of explicit detail ; not believing (but simply acqui- 

 escing, and that in a provisional way) in any fact which is 

 not clear in the light of its own evidence, or which, in 



