22 Spring 



If an inference may be drawn from recent mani- 

 festations of taste, it would appear that there is an 

 increase in the number of those who find that, apart 

 from the thirst for knowledge and arrangement and 

 classification, there is an interest in life and matter 

 and motion, and that the green fields and towering 

 mountains and rushing waters of earth are not wholly 

 to be regarded as staging and scenery for human 

 action, or matter for analysis, and that even the low 

 form of worship Carlyle contemptuously set aside as 

 view-haunting is not to be altogether despised. 



But the average man, even though he appreciate 

 this gift in others, desires for himself something more 

 active than mere contemplation, more definite and 

 positive than the observation, that is a reflection of 

 enjoyment rather than an accumulation of facts. And 

 so his devotion to nature takes the form of collecting, 

 wherein he at once finds a pastime that involves 

 no acute physical distress, a mild excitement with a 

 flavour of sport outlet for the universal human desire 

 to gather something, and a pleasing consciousness 

 that he is furthering science and amassing infor- 

 mation. 



The collection of natural objects has advantages 

 over every form of the same passion. Who would 

 gather china or curios, books or pictures, is doomed 

 to wander in dingy streets, to rummage ancient shop 

 and stall, to frequent stuffy auction-rooms, and with 

 the enthusiasm for his hobby to cultivate also the 



