that if a known investigator were to call and ask to look at certain books, the Assistant-Secretary would forthwith seat him with the books before him, absence of F.R.S. not in any wise withstanding. But this is not like having the right to consult any book on any day, and to take it away, if farther wanted. So much for the Royal Society as concerns myself. I must add that there is not a spark of party feeling against those who wilfully remain outside. The better minds of course know better; and the smaller _savants_ look complacently on the idea of an outer world which makes _elite_ of them. I have done such a thing as serve on a committee of the Society, and report on a paper: they had the sense to ask, and I had the sense to see that none of my opinions were compromised by compliance. And I will be of any use which does not involve the status of _homo trium literarum_; as I have elsewhere explained, I would gladly be _Fautor Realis Scientiae_, but I would not be taken for _Falsae Rationis Sacerdos_. Nothing worse will ever happen to me than the smile which individuals bestow on a man who does not _groove_. Wisdom, like religion, belongs to majorities; who can {31} wonder that it should be so thought, when it is so clearly pictured in the New Testament from one end to the other? The counterpart of _paradox_, the isolated opinion of one or of few, is the general opinion held by all the rest; and the counterpart of false and absurd paradox is what is called the "vulgar error," the _pseudodox_. There is one great work on this last subject, the _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_ of Sir Thomas Browne, the famous author of the _Religio Medici_; it usually goes by the name of Browne "On Vulgar Errors" (1st ed. 1646; 6th, 1672). A careful analysis of this work would show that vulgar errors are frequently opposed by scientific errors; but good sense is always good sense, and Browne's book has a vast quantity of it. As an example of bad philosophy brought against bad observation. The Amphisbaena serpent was supposed to have two heads, one at each end; partly from its shape, partly because it runs backwards as well as forwards. On this Sir Thomas Browne makes the following remarks: