20 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



We have inherited from past generations of thinkers a number 

 of useless words, and the erroneous ideas that stick to them, which 

 now only hamper us, without in any way helping us, because 

 other more important and useful words have replaced them. 

 Unfortunately, like the fifth stamen of a Bignonia, or like the 

 stipels of leaves, these useless remnants cannot be got rid of as 

 quickly as one might wish. 



It is now supposed to be incumbent on everyone, more or less, 

 to read up the past literature of a subject, before he or she puts 

 pen to paper, in order to learn what others have thought and said 

 on that subject, but, in so doing, one has to keep alive these 

 *' hieroglyphics." It may take generations before we get wholly 

 rid of them. 



Now that we are becoming philanthropic, inventors of new 

 words might be more careful how they impose worry on future 

 generations. 



One would like to ask is it only among the ignorant that a 

 great deal passes for science, which is not science at all, but a 

 " wrong scent," which a leader of a certain branch of thought has 

 got hold of, and because he is a leader, and an authority/, the 

 wrong scent takes us out of the right track ? 



At one time, we heard a good deal about " Listerism," and if 

 one then doubted it, he was looked upon as an ignorant fool. 

 But now Lister says " I feel ashamed that I should have ever 

 recommended the spray for the purpose of destroying the 

 microbes of the air."* It is no doubt the most honest way of 

 geting rid of a mental, and, in this instance, also a practical 

 encumbrance. 



Take another case. The wetness on plants in the evenings 

 and mornings, passed for a long period as a condensation of the 

 moisture of the surrounding air, called " dew," until Aitken split 

 this wetness into two distinct phenomena, viz., the condensation 

 of the moisture of the air, and the exudation of moisture from the 

 leaves. He, moreover, found out that the real dew was largely fed 

 by vapour rising out of the warm earth, and that, therefore, the 

 under surface of leaves was sometimes bedewed when the upper 

 surface was not. 



* Provincial Medical Gazette.— Octoher 1890, p. 670. 



