8 iPHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



them. Cogitations of how these plant forms came to be so, why 

 they are there, and where they came from have been ever present 

 in the author's mind. He tried to see in their different parts the 

 embryo forms out of which they came to be as they are. 



Many readers of these lines, no doubt will shut them up, and 

 say, " what a lot of rubbish." Among this rubbish, however, a 

 few not wholly useless notions may perhaps be found. The mind 

 of man always has had to wade through a lot of mental rubbish, 

 to get at a few possible plums. Many ideas, which at one time 

 are looked upon as gospel, become at another time, antiquated 

 rubbish, not unlike the fossils of past animal forms. 



The aggregate human mind is ever throwing off bulbils, so to 

 speak, that is, new ideas, which in some cases live and grow, while 

 the old stems decay and die, or the new ideas may remain dormant, 

 like seeds and buds, till the time and conditions come for their 

 germination. It is with ideas as with everything else — a struggle 

 for existence. 



We hear it said that such-and-such an assertion is worthless 

 because it is based on second-hand information. What is second- 

 hand information with one is first-hand with another, and in that 

 case this is also worthless, and so all books become worthless, 

 unless we personally verify all they contain ! Even then, what 

 guarantee would there be that our supposed verification is of any 

 worth ? 



I have never been in Central Africa, but upon the authority of 

 Stanley's first-hand observations I would not mind theorising on 

 certain statements he has made. Of course I might talk nonsense 

 on that basis, because it may turn out insufiicient. If so, it cannot 

 be helped. This has occurred before, and it will occur hereafter. 

 We had been theorising for eighteen centuries on the supposed 

 statements of the evangelists, which were supposed to have been 

 made upon first-hand information. Nevertheless, criticism has 

 already discounted a great deal of what they were credited with 

 having written. Who knows how much more may yet be discounted ? 



For a century great authorities had been pooh-poohing what 

 others were giving forth as mesmeric facts. On supposed sound 

 physiological data these authorities considered these phenomena as 

 impossibilities. Lo and T)ehold ! now we are swallowing them so 

 quickly that there is danger we may swallow more hypnotism 

 than is good for us. Legislation is even proposed against these 



