i88i.] 
A Brace of Paradoxes . 
659 
VI. A BRACE OF PARADOXES. 
ANY persons at the present day are not only willing, 
but anxious, to submit their most confirmed prac- 
tices and their most deeply-rooted convictions to a 
re-examination. Of this tendency no one can justly com- 
plain provided the scrutiny is carefully and seriously under- 
taken. But it sometimes happens that old customs and 
established opinions are challenged on the strength of some 
desultory one-sided observation, or of some hasty and im- 
perfect induction. In such cases the logic of Science bids 
us pause and most carefully weigh the evidence submitted to 
us before adopting the novel views. The history of disco- 
very tells us of many undoubted truths which, when first 
propounded, were met with opposition, ridicule, and even 
downright persecution. But it can tell us little of the sham 
faCts, of the baseless hypotheses, of the mad philosophies 
which are continually springing up like toadstools in an 
autumnal wood. The authors of such phantasies are always 
ready to pull down and re-ereCt at brief notice the whole 
fabric of modern Science ; and if learned societies and editors 
of journals turn a deaf ear to their lucubrations, they pose 
in the character of a neglected Lamarck or an imprisoned 
Galileo, and warn us that posterity will do them justice. 
Britain has been particularly rich in such men. But in this 
respeCt, as well as in certain others, we may yet find our- 
selves outstripped by our kinsmen across the Atlantic. 
We propose, in illustration of this subject, to take up two 
new biological notions, lately put forward in America, the 
one of a practical and the other of a speculative character, 
and examine the evidence upon which they are founded. 
We are far from asserting that the theories in question have 
been promulgated from the mere love of notoriety, or from 
dissatisfaction with existing customs and opinions simply as 
existing. But we think that there has been a great lack of 
thorough examination and a degree of rashness not entirely 
free from blame. 
The first of these novel doctrines relates to the mastica- 
tion of food. We have all been told by medical authorities, 
from Abernethy downwards, that to bolt our food rapidly in 
large lumps interferes with digestion, throws upon the 
stomach an additional burden, and thus injures health. 
This advice, be it remembered, was not founded upon 
