=_ OBITUARY 265 
at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the 
academical studies were concerned, as completely 
-as at Edinburgh and as at school.” (I. p. 46.) 
And yet, as before, there is ample evidence that 
this negative result cannot be put down to any 
native defect on the part of the scholar. Idle and 
dull young men, or even young men who being 
neither idle nor dull, are incapable of caring for 
anything but some hobby, do not devote them- 
selves to the thorough study of Paley’s “ Moral 
Philosophy,” and “Evidences of Christianity ” ; 
nor are their reminiscences of this particular 
portion of their studies expressed in terms such 
as the following: “The logic of this book [the 
*Evidences’] and, as I may add, of his ‘ Natural 
Theology’ gave me as much delight as did 
Euclid.” (1. p. 47.) 
The collector’s instinct, strong in Darwin from 
his childhood, as is usually the case in great 
naturalists, turned itself in the direction of Insects 
during his residence at Cambridge. In childhood 
it had been damped by the moral scruples of a 
sister, as to the propriety of catching and _ killing 
insects for the mere sake of possessing them, but 
now it broke out afresh, and Darwin became an 
enthusiastic beetle collector. Oddly enough he 
took no scientific interest in beetles, not even 
troubling himself to make out their names; his 
delight lay in the capture of a species which 
turned out to be rare or new, and still more in 
