THE 
s 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
VoL. xx.—APRIL, 1886.—No. 4. 
THE ANCESTRY OF NASUA? 
BY SAMUEL LOCKWOOD, PH.D. 
FTER a chronicle of such achievements of Coati-Mondi and 
her Cousin “Coon,” shall we not institute a serious search 
) into the origin of the heroine, and so establish or set aside our 
Suspicion? ‘So I should think,” says an interested reader, “ after 
4% such a tidbit of revelry in the romance of science-dom or dream- 
land” So, ho! a challenge to the array! Then let the contest 
come! But pray, good sir, is there not in this realm of science 
an imagination which conducts to light and truth, as against that 
romance which leads surely to error and darkness? But what is 
Scientific romancing? Is it not that unscientific conduct which, _ 
= asif contributing to knowledge, asserts the untenable and un- > 
- ~ truthful? Sometimes the conceit is so unwarranted as to appear 
o on its very face a vagary, extravagant and impossible. ey 
: Science thinking is reverend and reserved—for here dash is - 
impudence, nor is cheek courage. The habitual theorist finds a — 
fascination in sheer novelty—of such the cautious thinker is 
chary. But if the giddy and reckless are proscribed the use of 
edge tools, the sober-minded is allowed the tentative hypothesis, 
; The one would cut the knot, the other would untie it. The hon- _ 
= €st theorist is simply feeling his way. He may have a priori — 
ae methods despite of Mr. Gradgrind’s much mouthing for “ facts!" 
o Such modest ventures, “ assumptions,” may prove real foreca t 
is! Wide significance. But such is not romancing. Nature 
= “S£ seers, who have happily uttered esoteric truth which I 
afterwards crystallized into accepted theory in the formulatiot 
_ “From a forthcoming work by Dr. Lockwood. By Ae 
Í 22 ‘ 
; VOL. Xx.—No. tv, 
mee 
