276 GILBEET WHITE OF SELBOENE 



abilities and position in the literature of natural 

 history. 



The question is frequently asked, "Why has this 

 book, alone among books of its class on natural 

 history, lived ? Why does it even still appeal to 

 so many men of so differing tastes and posi- 

 tions in life? Why is it constantly republished? 

 One reason may be that it is written in a style 

 which may be called a model of clear unaffected 

 English. Its author did not, as a boy and young 

 man, enjoy the benefit of any instruction in facts 

 of science ; instruction which would in our time be 

 dignified with the name of a scientific education; 

 but his reasoning faculties were strengthened and 

 improved by the study of the classical languages, 

 which not only introduced him to the noblest 

 literature, but also taught him to be logical and 

 careful in thought, and accurate in statement. 



To criticise the book in the light of modern know- 

 ledge would be absurd. Yet the thought has often 

 occurred to the present writer, when reading it, that 

 Gilbert White was no unworthy forerunner of that 

 greatest of naturalists of our time, who is said to 

 have changed the thoughts of men. Perhaps when 

 the former wrote "the two great motives which 

 regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are 

 love and hunger " ^ we may not find in this even the 

 germ of Darwin's great theory of sexual and natural 

 selection ; but " protective mimicry " is clearly in- 



* Vide * The Natural History of Selborne,' Letter XI. to BarriDgton. 



