AmseJp°tri92hiarm1     Empirical  Fallacies  (And  Others).  631 
crop  of  wheat.  "Imagination,"  said  the  chemist,  for  did  not  analysis 
show  that  clover  was  insufficient,  or  even  nearly  useless,  in  accepted 
food  content?  And  yet  the  farmer  was  not  convinced;  he  continued 
to  raise  clover  to  enrich  his  soil.  Came  then  the  man  with  the 
microscope.  Behold,  the  roots  of  the  clover  swarmed  with  nitrogen- 
fixing  bacteria.  To  this  it  might  be  added  that  beneath  a  black 
locust  thicket  blue  grass  luxuriates,  and  white  beans  thrive  on  poor, 
sandy  soil,  that  mellilotus  (sweet  clover)  asks  no  fertilizer  when 
it  covers  Kentucky  yellow  clay  dug  from  deep  in  the  earth. 
Sun  Spots. — Comes  to  the  sun  a  mighty  "spot"  that  slowly 
passes  across  its  face.  Simultaneously  a  display  of  aurora  borealis 
blankets  our  heavens.  Electrical  disturbances  pervade  the  earth, 
telegraph  wires  refuse  to  "message,"  even  lead  fuses  within  brick 
buildings  flash  and  burn  out.  What  is  more  natural  than  to  conclude 
that  the  earth-phenomenon  is  caused  by  the  sun  spot?  But,  might 
not  another  mind  reason  that  suns  and  planets  are  but  cells  floating 
in  space,  and  that  both  sun,  earth  and  .heavens  respond  in  unison 
to  an  intercellular  impulse  in  the  ether  that  pervades  all  things  ? 
Remedial  agents  there  are,  employed  in  confidence  by  observing 
physicians,  though  the  man  of  science  has  not  as  yet  fathomed  the 
secret  of  their  action.  Helpless  is  he  to  account  for  phenomena 
known  to  his  microscope,  his  biological  efforts  are  fruitless,  chem- 
istry fails.  The  empiricist  accepts  these  facts,  he  continues  to  em- 
ploy the  agents  discredited  by  all  but  those  who,  by  repeated  ex- 
periences, have  learned  their  uses.  With  the  object  of  curing  his 
patients,  the  observing  physician  walks  the  forbidden  path  of  an 
ostracized  "irregular." 
But  enough.  None  can  forever  suppress  facts  with  theories, 
or  by  means  of  experiments  that  do  not  parallel  or  cannot  fathom 
Nature's  laboratory.'  The  man  of  science  shows  why  the  blessing 
of  the  fig  trees  gave  the  crop  of  figs,  why  the  apple  blossoms  when 
the  bass  spawn,  why  the  raspberry  fruit  ripens  when  the  catalpa 
blooms ;  but  as  yet  he  closes  his  eyes  in  despair  and  offers  no  scien- 
tific explanation  as  to  why  the  morel  makes  its  appearance  under 
the  apple  tree  in  the  orchard  and  the  ash  tree  in  the  woodlands,  and 
not  in  the  same  rich  earth  about  the  base  of  the  beech,  the  hickory, 
the  elm,  the  walnut  or  other  trees  in  the  forest  shades  adjacent  to  the 
ash.   Such  problems  as  these  he  will  surely  work  out,  and  this  writer 
