THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XLV 



this group of problems is one of indecision. If I confess 

 to you, as I am bound to do, that positive results from my 

 own experiments will give me far greater satisfaction 

 than negative ones, this is chiefly because negative results 

 commonly prove nothing. The question would be left 

 very nearly as it was before. This, of course, constitutes 

 a serious defect in my own vaunted method of attacking 

 the problem, a defect which it shares, however, with any 

 other which could be devised. But any results are better 

 than no results, and these problems seem worth a far more 

 thorough testing than they have yet received. The pres- 

 ent experiments ought, as Professor MacDougal has 

 pointed out, 8 and the author keenly realizes, to be sub- 

 jected to various checks and controls, and to be continued 

 through a considerable series of generations. It is my 

 own fervent hope to be able to carry out such a program. 



8 Presidential address hefore the Ainciiean Society of Naturalists, read 

 at Ithaca, December 29, 1910. 



