340 
MR. FISH’S REJOINDER TO THE EDITOR. 
be in the knowledge of these principles, I do not consider that, with 
strict propriety, you can set it down at once to my prepossessions, when 
I do not fully coincide with you; especially after you had been told that 
my opinions were not fully formed, and that more information was my 
principal object. Besides, though I am fully convinced that such state¬ 
ments were made with the kindest possible intentions, you must, from 
your experience, be perfectly aware that such a method is the very 
easiest that could be adopted for silencing objections to any theory, 
while it renders, to a great extent, nugatory what an objector may 
farther advance, until he has satisfactorily freed himself from the im¬ 
putation of prejudice—a result which, were it possible, would, from the 
very egotism it involves, be attended with circumstances anything but 
pleasing. You seem also to have acted upon the supposition, that, when 
I did not agree with your opinions, I held and maintained the reverse; 
and hence you have been led to bestow more labour in demolishing the 
theories of others, than in establishing or elucidating your own. It is 
true, that in many respects I did, and do, approve of the leaf-elaborat¬ 
ing, sap-circulating theory, though far from being fully satisfied with 
it; and when I state that I see nothing more unpliilosophical in believ¬ 
ing that theory, than in giving credence to the one which you have 
propounded, you have no right to infer from this that I am bound neck 
and heels to this or that physiological creed, nor yet to consider that you 
have sufficiently gained your point, until you have shown clearly and 
indisputably, from facts and principles, in what (not the equality, but) 
the decided superiority of your theory consists. 
As one proof that my prejudices are not remarkably deep-rooted, I 
am glad to have it in my power to inform you, that if no other advan¬ 
tage results from this discussion, it has had the influence of causing me 
to doubt some things which I had almost firmly believed ; but I feel 
sorry to add, that your reasoning, though well calculated to lead to 
fresh inquiry, has failed to convince me that your theory is the one 
which I should find free from objections. In answering my letter, too, 
you sometimes strain my observations from their obvious meaning, and 
make a distinction without a difference. Thus, you state that “I have 
no doubt but that a purely homogeneous and elaborated sap may be 
changed into wood or bark,” &c. Now I merely stated that I did not 
perceive that supposing the one theory was more unphilosophical than 
supposing the other; and I do conceive that, so far as my own indi¬ 
vidual opinion is concerned, I have a perfect right to hold the balance 
of investigation, until that scale preponderates in which the greatest 
weight of fact and argument is accumulated. 
Again, you ask “ Can you or any one else bring forward indubitable 
