72 Journal of the Mitchell Society. [Nov. 



nourish the root of the tree and reappear in the new leaves or 

 theories which succeed.'' With this spirit, it will not hesitate 

 to attack any of our pet scientific, sociological or theological 

 dog-mas, which are frail as all human system must be. These 

 attacks are without venom, however, for "Science * * * 

 requires for its satisfactory prosecution the employment of 

 our very noblest powers, and it is by them alone that we can 

 hope to attain a knowledge of the most supreme and ultimate 

 truths which our intellectual faculties have the power to 

 apprehend." — (Mivart. ) 



Although Gough remarked to Dalton, "The human mind 

 is naturally partial to its own conceptions and frequently con- 

 descends to practise a little self-delusion when obliged by the 

 force of facts and argument to abandon a favorite notion," 

 the supreme lesson in the history of science, most marked in 

 our own time, is the pursuit of trutli. Much time has been 

 spent in defining art and casting that which did not fit a pet 

 definition into a rubbish box called science, or "natural know- 

 ledge" as a member of the Royal Society was pleased to term 

 it. Many of those insisting upon such a classification are 

 not without reason, for have not certain phylogenetics promul- 

 gated on the flimsiest excuse some pan mixta, as Weisman's 

 germ-plasm theory and then easily remembering the conclu- 

 sions, but forgetful of the evidence, maintained that it was a 

 law? Or has not a Tesla over magnanimously taken the 

 public into his confidential conversations with the inhabitants 

 of Mars? 



It has been fashionable in years gone by to say that poetry 

 and truth were antagonistic. Coleridge and Poe, I think, 

 insisted that science and poetry were irreconcilable. Incon- 

 gruous statements, as when Shakespeare speaks of toothache 

 "as humor or a worm", doubtless gave rise to such thoughts. 

 The Avon poet put it according to the scientific teachings of 

 his time. Civilization and methods of interpreting the truth 

 change and progress, but truth itself is eternal. Science will 



