INTEODUCTION xxv 



the History that White's attention was perpetually fixed upon 

 one narrow spot of English ground. 



White was a man of few books and of no great range of 

 thought. His mind was a lens exquisite in definition, but of 

 small field. When it was truly focussed upon any object, it 

 revealed many details which escape the ordinary observer. 

 He not only saw well, but described well, rapidly gathering 

 round the point of interest all the illustrative facts which his 

 experience yielded. At such times White is at his very best 

 — modern, anticipatory and scientific. Outside this small 

 field of clear light there naturally existed a hazy region of 

 imperfectly apprehended facts and notions. The existence of 

 such a region of half-knowledge is not remarkable; it is 

 probably to be found in every mind ; what distinguished 

 White was the exceptional clearness and the narrow compass 

 of the illuminated tract. In the Natural History of Selborne 

 we pass from a passage which is for ever memorable in biology, 

 and there are many such, to discussions in which we feel that 

 his mind was only half awake, that he was merely giving out 

 the teaching of his own age. Of this kind are his medita- 

 tions on physico-theology, reflections of the not very vigorous 

 thought of Ray and Derham. Like them, and like most 

 English and German naturalists of the eighteenth century, 

 White multiplies instances of natural contrivance, but ignores 

 all the difficult cases. 



I have noticed a few of the special features of the Natural 

 History qf Selborne, but no analysis can fully explain its 

 peculiar charm. There is genius in the book, which makes 

 things for ever memorable which another might have at- 

 tempted to tell without ever catching our attention. Think 

 of the common man's tiresome details of the weather which 

 he has known in past years, and then recollect Gilbert White's 

 account of his great frosts, his hot summers and his thunder- 

 storms. Of all English books on natural history this has 

 been most read and most enjoyed. Learned and simple, 

 practical and contemplative, working naturalists and poets — 

 all find in Gilbert White an author to their taste. Probably 

 no book in any language has incited more people to take up 

 the study of natural history. Many have tried to write letters 



