206 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



is inexhaustible. Knowledge unfolds vista after vista, for 

 ever stretching inimitably distant, the horizon moving as we 

 move. New facts connect themselves with new forms ; the 

 most casual observation often becomes a .spark of inextin- 

 guishable thought, running along trains of inflammable sug- 

 gestion. To this intent the naturalist should always have 

 pencil and note-book on his working-table, in which to record 

 every new fact, no matter how trifling it may seem at the 

 moment ; the time will come when that and other facts will 

 be the keys to unlock many a casket. Not that Observation 

 alone is, as many imagine, the potent instrument of Zoology. 

 Lists of details crowd books and journals, yet these are in 

 themselves no better than the observations of Chaldean shep- 

 herds, which produced no Astronomy in centuries of watch- 

 ing. They find their place in science, only as the architec- 

 tural mind disposes them in due co-ordination. What should 

 we think of a chemist who, on mere inspection of substances, 

 unaided by re-agents, and his balance, .hoped to further 

 Chemistry ? What would lists of such observation avail ? 

 And in the far more complex science of Biology, how shall 

 cursory inspection, superficial obsei-vation, avail ? We must 

 follow the Methods which have led to certainty in the exact 

 sciences. We must render the complex facts of Life as simple 

 as we can, by processes of elimination. Experiment must go 

 hand in hand with Observation, controlling it, and assuring 

 us that we have correctly observed. Much has been done, 

 and is daily done, in this way, yet still men too easily con- 

 tent themselves with observation, or, what is equally falla- 



