24 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



class, or even taking nature, as a whole, when the question regards 

 the highest division into which her productions are evidently 

 distributed." 



Then in a note he remarks, " Botanists are not in general 

 aware to what extent this fact is exhibited in the vegetable king- 

 dom, because for the most part they have only very imperfect 

 materials, and therefore suppose that the distinctions between 

 species are far more definite than they really are. In a large 

 herbarium like that of Sir W. J. Hooker, in which species exist 

 from every part of the world where a species may chance to grow, 

 the truth of this remark will at once be apparent, and the veriest 

 •hair-splitter will pause before he inflicts on science a multitude of 

 -names which can lead to no useful result, but on the contrary, 

 make botany a trackless wilderness.'* 



I am aware that a good deal of this species making is dying 

 out, nevertheless, morphologists and histologists continue to split 

 "hairs, and inflict on science an unnecessary multitude of names.* 

 If science is ever to become popular, and a large part of its value 

 will be lost unless it does become popular, the minds of students 

 must be economised in order that they may comprehend the essence 

 of things rather than have their mental energy scattered in 

 remembering an infinity of names. After all each man's capacity 

 for remembering names is limited, each according to mental con- 

 stitution, and if he has to stuff at one end more than his brain 

 will hold, something must go out at the other end. Not only our 

 social and commercial life, but our religious thoughts must now, 

 and in the future, be bound up with scientific thought, and there- 

 fore it is imperative that scientific investigations should not be 

 unnecessarily encumbered with a " multitude of names which can 

 lead to no useful result." f 



Placed in its simplest light, evolution, with its myriads of 

 forms, is difficult enough to grasp, but to make it more difficult by 

 encumbering it with unnecessary terms will hardly lead us to com- 

 prehend the universal energy which creates and modifies all things 

 according to its own ways, and heedless of our words. 



* What has been truly said of species may be as truly said of organs and 

 ^ells. 



f To the perplexing and unavoidable battle of life, they add an avoidable 

 and useless battle of words. 



