36 
DISEASES OF FIELD AND GARDEN CROFS. 
and somewhat extended, this volume is intended for practical 
agriculturists, and appears to set forth with fairness the arguments 
on both sides in certain vexed questions which enter into the sub- 
jects discussed. Of course it is not difficult to see in which direction 
the writer’s own opinions tend, but there is no personality, and no 
assumption of dogmatism, or any attempt to sneer at and quarrel 
with those from whom he feels bound to differ. On the whole we 
feel prepared to endorse the views, deemed in some quarters 
heretical, which the writer favours, and though sometimes it has 
been our honour to be linked together as a “ pair of heretics,” the 
opprobrium has not yet convinced either of his error, or induced a 
desire to recant. Time is on our side, and we are content to wait. 
We cannot enumerate the thirty-eight chapters into which the 
book is divided, but in it will be found Potato Diseases, Onion and 
Cabbage Diseases, the Corn Mildews, Ergot of Grain, Smut, and 
many others, all profusely illustrated, and described in plain 
language, so as to require no glossary. 
It is not our intention to enter upon any of the subjects here 
treated, since we have neither time nor inclination for that particular 
“ vanity and vexation of spirit ” denominated controversy. No 
additional progress has been made in the arguments during some 
years, in spite of the volumes of “ words ” which have been written. 
The premises are the same, the deductions are the 6ame, the 
missing links, and the fallacious conclusions, are all as they were, it 
is only variations that have been played, but the fundamental tune 
is the same. “We cannot believe a proposition only by wishing, or 
only by dreading, to believe it,” says Mill,* and further he adds, for 
the benefit of such as seek to do it, that “it makes him shrink from 
the irksome labour of a rigorous induction, when he has a misgiving 
that its results may be disagreeable ; and in such examination as 
he does institute, it makes him exert that which is in a certain 
measure voluntary, his attention unfairly, giving, a larger share of 
it to the evidence which seems favourable to the desired conclusion, 
a smaller to that which seems unfavourable. It operates, too, by 
making him look out eagerly for reasons, or apparent reasons, to 
support opinions which are conformable, or to resist those which 
are repugnant, to his interests or feelings ; and when the interests 
or feelings are common to great numbers of persons, reasons are 
accepted and pass current, which would not for a moment be listened 
to in that character if the conclusion had nothing more powerful 
than its reasons to speak in its behalf. The natural or acquired 
partialities of mankind are continually throwing up philosophical 
theories, the sole recommendation of which consists in the premises 
they afford for proving cherished doctrines, or justifying favourite 
feelings ; and when any one of these theories has been so thoroughly 
discredited as no longer to serve the purpose, another is always 
ready to take its place. This propensity, when exercised in favour 
* “ System of Logic,” p 483. 
