STRAIGHT SEEING AND THINKING 



it through his study window. What the writer 

 means is doubtless that the spirit in which the lit- 

 erary naturalist — the man who goes to the fields 

 and woods for material for literature — treats the 

 facts of natural history differs from the spirit in 

 which the man of pure science treats his. Undoubt- 

 edly, but the two alike deal with facts, though with 

 facts of a different order. 



The scientist, the artist, the nature-lover, and the 

 like, all look for and find different things in nature, 

 yet there is no contradiction between the different 

 things they find. The truth of one is not the false- 

 hood of another. The field naturalist is interested in 

 the live animal, the laboratory zoologist in the mea- 

 suring and dissecting of the dead carcass. What 

 interests one is of little or no interest to the other. 

 So with the field botanist as compared with the mere 

 herbalist. Both are seekers for the truth, but for a 

 different kind of truth. One seeks that kind of truth 

 that appeals to his emotion and to his imagina- 

 tion ; the other that kind of truth — truth of struc- 

 ture, relation of parts, family ties — that appeals 

 to his scientific faculties. Does this fact, therefore, 

 give the nature faker warrant to exaggerate or to 

 falsify the things he sees in the fields and woods ? 

 Let him make the most of what he sees, embellish 

 it, amplify it, twirl it on the point of his pen like 

 a juggler, but let him beware of adding to it; let 

 him be sure he sees accurately. Let him beware 

 105 



