BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 21 



We should admit that both science and philosojDhy are 

 experimental. The one deals with experiments of facts j the 

 other with experiments of inferences. 



Once we thought that everything that theology asserted was 

 true. Scientific investigations picked holes in that theology. 

 Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and we 

 thought that everything science asserted was true. 



Theology picked holes in that science, now we find that a 

 sceptical attitude on both sides is a very good thing, and that we 

 cannot make any real progress without experiments, of both a 

 physical and a mental kind. The ones are supposed to belong to 

 science, and the others to philosophy, but whether there is any 

 need for the distinction is doubtful. Nothing can be known to us 

 until it becomes mental. 



The mechanical sciences are in an enviable position. They 

 furnish the machinery of human life. Any flaw is soon found out 

 and corrected. 



But speculative sciences have to pass through a long period of 

 crudeness, before they can be hammered into shape by logic and 

 criticism. 



The fact is in progressive science, what is called science 

 to-day, may become antiquated nonsense to-morrow. When this 

 happens, the sooner we say so the better. 



At every fortnightly meeting of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society we are made aware that so called genera breed with other 

 genera ; that species breed with other species. A Cattleya breeds 

 with a Lcelia ; a Lrelia with a Sophronitis ; a Sophronitis with 

 &11 Epidendrum ; a Chionodoxa with, a Scilla ; a JPhilesia \s\ih. 

 a Lapageria ; and so on. 



What an overwhelming mass of crude material has been looked 

 upon as pure science in the past ! For how can we look with 

 comfort upon this hair-splitting and founding of genera and 

 species, with, not unfrequently, corresponding unpronounceable 

 names, if these genera and species are so intimately related as to 

 be physiologically identicaly for if they were not, they could not 

 interbreed. 



The fact appears to be that systematic botanists have not kept 

 pace with the revolution caused by evolution. It is not im- 

 probable that a great deal of what was supposed to have been 



