BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 25 



Dr. Masters, in his " Veg. Teratology," p. 348, referring to 

 increase in the number of flower-stalks, says that Prof. Morren 

 gave this phenomenon the name of mischomany, and adds 

 **' a term which has not been generally adopted.'* For this, one 

 can only say, thank God ! 



Both science and philosophy are ever undergoing change, 

 owing either to new discoveries, to new instruments of observa- 

 tion, or to surveying things already known from a new stand- 

 point. So that it often happens that the science and philosophy 

 of any branch of human knowledge, at any one period are neither 

 wholly true, nor, as has been sometimes said of ancient science and 

 philosophy, wholly untrue. 



Not that things change, but we come to know more about 

 them. So to speak, we climb to a point, from which we can take 

 in more at a time, and therefore form a broader conception. The 

 human brain changes its mode of looking at things, because it has 

 ideas started in it, which it had not thought of before.* What it 

 is ever trying to do is to piece the facts into a connected theory, 

 which may stand before the judgment of those who may know, or 

 think they know, all, or a good deal about the matter. 



No doubt criticism ought to have aided science and philosophy 

 more than it has done. It is owing to their great advantage for 

 criticising scientific and philosophic work that scientific and 

 philosophical societies are useful. But just hear what an earnest 

 man, Andrew Lang, writing on the Science of Criticism in the 

 New Review of May, 1891, says : — 



" The writings of other critics daily and weekly, are often so 

 ignorant, so prejudiced, so spiteful, so careless, that perhaps no 

 printed matter is more entirely valueless and contemptible.'* 



Scientific criticism, to do any good, must have not only truth 

 for its sole object, but also the teaching of that truth to the 

 people. 



People often ask " What is the use of science ? Scientific 

 persons are not happier than others." 



In the struggle for existence, it is not happiness, so much as 

 being at all, which is the more important. It will be readily 

 understood that if one ceases to exist, there cannot be much 

 benefit in making inquiries about his or her happiness. And 



* These are the revelations, old and new, which have been going on in the 

 human mind from the beginning of time. 



