Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/164

1330 the other must be also. But this, I would remind him, is but shallow reasoning and inadmissable in argument, to say nothing of the question still remaining unsolved, whether the two species are the same in habit ; and that, therefore, if the black one's note is, by observation, melodious, that of the white must of necessity be so too. Pass- ing over, I say, this important problem, which, were we to analyze it, might afford us much additional information, and leaving unnoticed every ultimate result, I would lastly observe, that, in a record of facts (which experience has shown is so admirably supplied in 'The Zoologist') it is indispensably necessary that facts alone should be adhered to, otherwise how can we distinguish between what is true and false ? The place is supplied by no other periodical of the day, and it is to it, therefore, that we must go for much valuable information which would otherwise be unrecorded and lost. And if I might here add a few words in its favour, and answer those paltry objections which many vain-glorious pretenders have ignorantly urged against it, who would Loist the banner of what they call "science" over an "accumulation of mere facts," and endeavour to crush to the ground even Nature herself by the distorted image of her, which they themselves have erected, crying aloud "cui bono" to all our observa- tions ; if I might here declare but one opinion amongst a thousand, which, each day, are gaining ground perceptibly, and which will advance in the world as knowledge progresses onward, in spite of all their cavilling ; I would ask such men, on what firmer rock they would establish themselves than truth ? If fact, undisturbed by theory (which is the very essence of truth, and of which science in its noblest form, is, in the first instance, itself composed) be not worthy of record,— what is ? However promiscuous and unarranged facts may be, still they are "facts," and ought to be re- garded as such. Nor because they are small, ought they to be considered beneath our notice, for have not the grandest discoveries been made through study of the simplest truths ? Would not Newton have borne testimony to this in the theory of gravitation — one of the mightiest discoveries which the human mind has hitherto been capable of? And, if we can adduce examples of other truths brought to light by the same means, I ask any candid person to consider, whether, as the world advances in knowledge, still greater men may not yet arise and open to view, even through the humblest me- dia, truths as yet undreamt of, and only slumbering to be uproused by a second New- ton to a more glorious existence ? Should then practical naturalists be still branded with the names of "mere observers," "species-men," and the like; let them remem- ber how high a privilege it is to be classed under such denominations. Was it but the work of man on which their labours were expended— some useless question of mytho- logy — or some vain and endless discussion of technicalities, on which nothing depends, and from which no good can be derived, and which only cramps the mind, and renders it unfit for receiving wider and nobler truths: then indeed might their fears be not without foundation, that their labour is partially in vain. But in Nature nothing happens by chance. Unlike the works of art, which are merely the results of indivi- dual knowledge, and (what is shallower still) of individual taste ; there are in Nature, from the humblest to the loftiest objects, fixed laws by which every thing is regulated and balanced, and without which nothing could stand. To discover these laws and afterwards to deduce grander truths for our own benefit, is undoubtedly the cause for which those laws were established. And, inasmuch as this can only be accomplished by an accurate observation of facts, how can that be better attained than by affording a general receptacle into which every kind of truth may be received ? For, although piecemeal, it is of comparatively small importance, yet when collected into a body, it