402 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



you have to face no end of assumptions in support of which 

 assertions are substituted for true evidence. " The shadows 

 of the night are projected iuto the noon." The speculative 

 rush deepens, and 



'' Nunc ratio nulla est restandi, nulla facultas." 



Thus the attention of students is in danger of being turned 

 away from solid and profitable work, and substantial pro- 

 gress is greatly hindered. It would, indeed, be absurd to 

 attempt to divorce philosophy from observational branches 

 of science. This is beyond our power. But, were it within 

 our power, it would be most undesirable. Because it is 

 when observation allies itself with philosophy that bare 

 knowledge becomes vitalised, that the thoughts which under- 

 lie phenomena become as real to us as our own thoughts 

 are, and that we get in touch with the very highest function 

 of philosophy itself, that, namely, wdiich brings to the front 

 the all but universal conviction that the laws which deter- 

 mine and control the inter-dependencies and inter-relations 

 of being are the fruit of personal thought and forethought. 

 But, even assuming all the advantage held to lie in this, it 

 is still true, that much of the present unrest among students 

 touching life and its modes of manifestation is to be traced 

 to the increase of generalisations in these subjects, whose 

 data are part observational and inductive and part speculative. 

 Hence the growth of controversy. ISTevertheless, it is of 

 real interest to all earnest workers, in every department of 

 science, when current theories are brought to book, when 

 the facts held to warrant them are looked at all round, and 

 their true significances and relations determined. Truth will 

 stand all tests. Trial only brightens its lustre. 



XXXII. An Ornithological Visit to the Ascrih Islands, Loch 

 Snizort, SJcye. By John Swinburne, Esq. 



(Read 21st December 1887.) 



In returning from my visit to North Kona in 1883, I 

 called at the Ascribs, as they were very little out of my 

 ,way, and made a few notes on them. These have lain aside 



