28 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 



of pines, cycads, grasses, sedges, &c., simply because we have 

 inherited the botanical notion that a stamen is essentially different 

 from an antheridium, and that an ovule is essentially different 

 from a spore. To the evolutionist the difference is simply one 



of words. 



I admit that evolution may '' run mad " in one's mind, but if 

 care be taken about the facts, and more care be taken about the 

 leo-itimate inferences to be drawn from such facts, one may perhaps 

 keep clear of such an imputation. 



In conclusion, one may say of " speculation " that it is a 

 tentative theory, which may be improved into a " working theory," 

 if it proves, by further investigation, to have any soundness in it, 

 or entirely set aside, if found to be baseless. A speculation one 

 day may become a theory the next, and a part of sound philosophy 

 further on. Speculations may perhaps be more valuable as hints 

 to others than to the original speculator himself. This note may 

 appropriately perhaps be ended by the following quotation : — 



" Without a hypothesis man discovers nothing." . ..." By 

 hypotheses reason and imagination are conjoined, and all the powers of 

 the mind employed in research." — Dr. .T. Powell.— Life and work of 

 Ch. Darwin, by C. F. Holder. 



