PREFACE 



THE present volume is, like its predecessors, "Science 

 from an Easy Chair" (Series I and Series II) and 

 " Diversions of a Naturalist " — mainly a revision and 

 reprint — with considerable additions — of articles published 

 in daily or weekly journals. The first chapter appeared 

 originally in "The Field." The Chapters VI, XX, XXI, 

 and XXII were published in the "Illustrated London 

 News," under the title " About a Number of Things." The 

 rest are some of the articles which, as " Science from an 

 Easy Chair," I contributed, during seven years, to the 

 " Daily Telegraph." That, to me very happy, conjunction 

 was, like so many other happy things, necessarily inter- 

 rupted by the Great War. 



One result of that terrible cataclysm is that not a few 

 thoughtful writers have been led to deny the existence of 

 what they call " Progress," meaning by that word the 

 development of mankind from a less to a more complete 

 attainment of moral and physical well-being. The 

 question raised is obscured by the arbitrary use of the 

 word " progress," since by it any movement from point 

 to point — whether advantageous and desirable or the 

 reverse — is described, as, for instance, in the familiar titles 

 given by Bunyan to his book " The Pilgrim's Progress " 

 and by Hogarth to his pictures "The Rake's Progress." 

 b 



