289 
1888 .] Prof. Wilhelm His on Animal Morphology. 
taught to use, and he will want well-disposed scientific systems, 
which have to show every phenomenon in its invariable place. 
But nature is remarkably obstinate against purely logical opera- 
tions; she likes not schoolmasters nor scholastic procedures. As 
though she took a particular satisfaction in mocking at our intelli- 
gence, she very often shows us the phantom of an apparently general 
law, represented by scattered fragments, which are entirely incon- 
sistent. Logic asks for the union of these fragments ; the resolute 
dogmatist, therefore, does not hesitate to go straight on to 
supply, by logical conclusions, the fragments he wants, and to 
flatter himself that he has mastered nature by his victorious intelli- 
gence. 
Is nature really to he mastered in this way ? Are we not rather 
taught by numerous discoveries how the ways and means of nature 
are mostly very different from those indicated by our own intelli- 
gence, and how patient inquiry is always far preferable to the most 
elegant logical construction % 
The tendency towards the construction of closed scholastic systems 
is the character of scientific dogmatism. Any systems are easily 
established as a sort of creed, and defended with intolerance and 
partiality. Strong dogmatists are not only partial in adopting or 
rejecting observations of others, but they are also partial in their 
own work. They observe natural facts, not as they present them- 
selves, hut as they should be seen in the light of the dogma. Blind 
on one side, dogmatists are not rarely subject to hallucination on 
the other. It would he easy to point out many instances of such 
partialities in actual text-books, as well as in actual monographs. 
In political life partiality may be unavoidable ; in scientific life it 
is always a capital fault, and a sin against truth. 
I am, perhaps, too severe in my words against scientific dogmatism. 
We all, even the best of us, partake more or less of it, and 
generally the more the younger we are. Youth is rash in scientific 
as well as in everyday life. Whilst growing older we have so 
many opportunities of observing the inexhaustible wealth of natural 
operations, and of comparing this wealth with the limits of our own 
intelligence, that we become more and more modest in our demand for 
explanations and generalisations. Instead of aspiring to lead nature 
in the construction of her laws, we are satisfied to follow her in her 
