An Introduction to a Biology 



and its concentration upon the work in hand ; the 

 approximation to the mind of the focus of its 

 interest would soon lead to utter want, unless there 

 were someone to provide for the inventor. 



Another objection which may possibly be brought 

 is that love of adventure is not an essentiallv human 

 characteristic. This objection I should be prepared 

 to admit in part. For it would seem that the adven- 

 ture which attends the life of the lion is not merely 

 the result of necessity, but is also the result of a 

 love of adventure for its own sake. I cannot think 

 that a lion is as happy eating a horse's head he 

 has been given, in a cage, as eating a zebra's head 

 he has taken, in the wilderness. Still, the love of 

 adventure for its own sake has undoubtedly been 

 accentuated in man ; the climber amongst the peaks 

 of the Himalayas is not there in search of food. 

 But is it not possible that our reluctance to grant 

 a love of adventure, in any considerable degree, to 

 animals other than man may be due to our ignor- 

 ance of their lives ; and to that orthodox theory 

 of evolution (natural selection) which obliges us to 

 think that an animal is what it is and does what 

 it does because if it had been ever so slightly less 

 efficient it would have been eliminated in the struggle 

 for existence ? For in the cases of the few animals 

 of whose lives we have been given a detailed picture 

 — as, for instance, of the Adelie Penguin, in a de- 

 lightful book, " Antarctic Penguins," by Mr. Levick 

 — ^there seems to be no escape from the conclusion 

 that a great many of their actions are inspired by 

 roguish fun, as when the penguins pushed each 

 other into the water, or by the sporting instinct, 



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