CONCLUSION. 307 



pretence to scientific knowledge. Yet one finds 

 scattered up and down among the abundant 

 literature of Darwinism not a few mistakes 

 which are almost as ludicrous, most of which 

 also result from a defective acquaintance with 

 elementary facts and laws. 



It is necessary that every hypothesis, however 

 plausible, should be subjected to the severest 

 scrutiny at home before it is turned loose to 

 bear the brunt of the world's criticism. Every 

 fact also which arrests the attention of the 

 naturalist — such, for instance, as the snake-like 

 peculiarities of cats, which were discussed in the 

 previous chapter — needs to be put through a 

 very stringent testing process before its value 

 can be gauged. The only way to do this suc- 

 cessfully is to compare it with kindred facts 

 wherever they exist, and plainly this cannot be 

 done without a fair acquaintance with other 

 branches of natural history. 



But knowledge is by no means all that is 

 required in order to form a just estimate of the 

 value of any such piece of evidence. There 

 must be a complete impartiality of mind. Doubt- 

 less it is on the whole a good thing that we 

 feel a kind of parental regard for notions which 



