Nature Portraits 
3 8 
By A. Radclyffe Dugmore. 
scientific method is only imagination 
trained and set within bounds. Com- 
pared with the whole mass of scientific 
attainment, mere fact is but a minor part, 
after all. Facts are bridged bv imagina- 
tion. They are tied together by the 
thread of speculation. The very essence 
of science is to reason from the known to 
the unknown. 
squirrel-fish. We have a right to the poetic interpre- 
tation of nature. It is essential only that 
the observation is correct and the inference reasonable. In teaching science 
we may confine ourselves to scientific formulas, but in teaching nature we 
may admit the spirit as well as the letter. If I were making a curriculum 
for the study of nature, I should include a course in English poetry. 
In our day of science, people seem 
to be afraid of sentiment. The scien- 
tist forbids us to personify ; and this is 
well. But this spirit may be carried so 
far as to forbid figures of speech and to 
condemn parables. Speech cannot he 
literally accurate. Even astronomers say 
that the sun sets, but we know that it 
does not. The trouble with much of the 
sentiment is that it gives us a wrong point of view. To say that a potato- 
plant works all the season in order to provide for its offspring the next year 
is said to give a wrong conception of the plant because it implies motive. 
But does this picture mislead any one ? Everybody knows that a potato- 
plant has no brains. Everybody knows that the statement conveys a truth. 
Under certain conditions I believe that it is perfectly justifiable. If it is not, 
then I may not say that a potato has eyes. 
Much of the objection to statements of 
this kind is mere quibbling. But, on 
the other hand, all such allegories must 
be true in spirit and in their teaching. 
Much of the current writing of plants 
and animals, by which human motives are 
implied, is productive of harm. It is 
By A. Radclyffe Dugmore. 
ROCK-HIND. 
By A. Radclyffe Dugmore. 
YELLOW-FIN GROUPER. 
