445 



locality as definite as possible, and then the heights and distances are often available 

 from the usual sources. It is desirable to err, if at all, in the direction of fullness of 

 particulars. Let them be taken down at once, while standing in front of the tree if 

 possible. It is surprising what a treacherous thing memory is. 



Some Aphorisms. 



Huxley ('" Life,"i, 445) says — ■ 



In Observational Science we have the collection of facts, and to proceed to 



Classificatory Science, by which the facts are arranged, and end with 



Inductive Science, in which facts are reasoned upon and laws deduced from 

 them. 



Buckle remarks that induction as a reasoning to principles, by which we rise 

 from the concrete to the abstract. The inductive philosopher is naturally cautious 

 and patient, while the deductive one is more remarkable for boldness, dexterity and, 

 sometimes, for rashness. Dear old Darwin (to Wallace, 28th August, 1872), said : 

 " I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer's writings." He 

 may be quoted for another thought : " How few generalisers there are among system- 

 atists ! I really suspect there is something absolutely opposed to each other, and hostile 

 in the two frames of mind required for systematising and reasoning on a large collection 

 of facts." ("Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," ii, 39.) 



In the following passage, a critical philosopher speaks of " . . . . General- 

 isations . . . which, like most generalisations,' were mainly wrong, but which 

 stimulated further inquiry." (Leslie Stephen '*' English Literature and Society in the 

 Eighteenth Century," p. 184, 1921), where he is doubtless referring to our friends the 

 deductive philosophers. Aristotle is credited with having gone further, in having 

 said : " Xothing can be positively known, and even this cannot be positively asserted." 

 This should keep us humble-minded. 



On the other hand, every close student of a subject at times feels disheartened 

 by a thought such as this :— ' I do not know whether you ever had the feeling of having 

 thought so much over a subject that you had lost all power of judging it." (C. Darwin 

 to C. Lyell, in the former's " Life and Letters," iii, 72.) This is a hint that one must 

 from time to time determinedly lay a subject aside until the mind is refreshed. 



While contemplation of the discoveries of our predecessors and contemporaiies 

 is right and proper, Milton reminds us that they are also a bugle-call to duty — " The 

 light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover 



