in.] ORIGIN OF TASTE FOR SCIENCE. 195 



children, idiots, and magpies, often leads to the 

 study of the things collected, and is of immense 

 use to a man who wishes to study objects that 

 must be collected in large numbers. I have 

 been told of an astronomer whose primary taste 

 was a love of polished brass instruments and 

 smooth mechanical movements, that nothing sat- 

 isfied this taste so fully as work with telescopes, 

 and from loving the instruments he soon learnt 

 to love the work for which they were used. A 

 taste for careful drawing works well into en- 

 gineering and into systematic botany or zoology. 

 A love of adventure and field sports may be an 

 extremely useful element in the character of a 

 man who follows geology or zoology. 



As a rough numerical estimate, it seems that 

 6 out of every 10 men of science were gifted by 

 nature with a strong taste for it ; certainly not 

 1 person in 10, taken at haphazard, possesses 

 such an instinct ; therefore I contend that its 

 presence adds five-fold at least, to the chance of 

 scientific success. The converse way of looking 

 at the question gives a similarly large estimate. 

 Certainly one-half of the population have no 



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