JULY. 107 



naturally unsuited to him, by covering his skin with 

 clothes ; and the experience of ages has taught him 

 to avoid exposure to the risk of chill. Every man 

 saves his own life many times when, because he feels 

 chilly, he buttons up his coat, turns up his collar, and 

 crams his hands into his pockets, if he can do no 

 more. Above all other chills, man instinctively and 

 quite rightly dreads that which strikes him in the 

 small of the back the mere thought of cold water 

 trickling down his back makes him shudder because 

 the spine, the mainspring of his life, is there least 

 protected. On the other hand, civilization has taught 

 us how, with warm water or the friction of towels 

 after a cold bath, to avoid the ill effects of chill and 

 at the same time gain the advantages of cleanliness. 

 But we cannot always command warm water and 

 towels, and, inasmuch as a chill is more dangerous 

 than dirt, the natural instinct of man, living in a 

 climate where clothes are necessary as a protection 

 from cold, is not to bathe. A liking for ablutions is, 

 in fact, a taste which man has artifically re-acquired, 

 after he had lost it by migrating into regions where 

 it was dangerous. 



FOALS AND BOYS. 



We are much too ready to forget that man is an 

 animal, when we blame as personal defects in the 

 individual what are merely habits acquired by the 

 species for its own good in the struggle for exist- 

 ence. We find fault with a boy because he is always 

 in mischief and never keeps still ; but in this the 

 healthy boy is merely copying the behaviour the 



