APPENDIX A 349 



is reasonably sure that they can be parsed. He can take pains to see 

 that his whole thought is expressed, instead of leaving vacancies which 

 must be filled by the puzzled and groping reader. His own views and 

 his quotations from the views of others about the static and dynamic 

 theories of distribution are examples of an important principle so imper- 

 fectly expressed as to make us doubtful whether it is perfectly appre- 

 hended by the writer. He can avoid the use of those pedantic terms 

 which are really nothing but offensive and, fortunately, ephemeral sci- 

 entific slang. There has been, for instance, a recent vogue for the ex- 

 tensive misuse, usually tautological misuse, of the word "complexus" — 

 an excellent word if used rarely and for definite purposes. Mr. Hase- 

 man drags it in continually when its use is either pointless and redun- 

 dant or else serves purely to darken wisdom. He speaks of the "Antil- 

 lean complex" when he means the Antilles, of the "organic complex" 

 instead of the characteristic or bodily characteristics of an animal or 

 species, and of the "environmental complex" when he means nothing 

 whatever but the environment. In short, Mr. Haseman and those 

 whose bad example he in this instance follows use "complexus" in 

 much the same spirit as that displayed by the famous old lady who 

 derived religious — instead of scientific — consolation from the use of 

 "the blessed word Mesopotamia." 



The reason that it is worth while to enter this protest against Mr. 

 Haseman's style is because his work is of such real and marked value. 

 The pamphlet on the distribution of South American species shows that 

 to exceptional ability as a field worker he adds a rare power to draw, 

 with both caution and originality, the necessary general conclusions 

 from the results of his own observations and from the recorded studies 

 of other men; and there is nothing more needed at the present moment 

 among our scientific men than the development of a school of men who, 

 while industrious and minute observers and collectors and cautious 

 generalizers, yet do not permit the faculty of wise generalization to be 

 atrophied by excessive devotion to labyrinthine detail. 



Haseman upholds with strong reasoning the theory that since the 

 appearance of all but the lowest forms of life on this globe there have 

 always been three great continental masses, sometimes solid sometimes 

 broken, extending southward from the northern hemisphere, and from 

 time to time connected in the north, but not in the middle regions or 

 the south since the carboniferous epoch. He holds that life has been 



