Too little, I think, has been done in this way. The imaginative element is one without which all things starve. In natural history it is particularly wanted, and would have particularly good effects. Most naturalists think only of what is the rule in any animal's habits—exceptions they do not care about—yet, looked at in a certain way, they are still more interesting. Moreover, there is a great tendency to see an animal do just what it is supposed to do, and this tendency does not conduce to keen and interested observation. But the future modification of any species must depend largely upon deviations, on the part of individuals belonging to it, from its more ordinary line of conduct, so that any man who should wish rationally to speculate on this future must become, perforce, a patient noticer of such deviations, and, therefore, a great observer of the animal in question.
To support a theory is a great motive towards the collection of facts, yet a number of small-minded people are always deprecating what they call "mere theory" in field natural history, and crying out for facts only. Theory, however, is a soil in which facts grow, and there is a greater crop from a false one than from none at all. The history of astrology and alchemy are instances of this—if, indeed, the latter, in its fundamental belief, does not turn out to have been true after all. When have men been much interested in facts—apart from mere gaping wonder or amusement—except in connection with
