FIELD AND STtDY 



Man is first and the language follows. You must 

 have man before you can have his language. The 

 lower animals have a rude language, but it does not 

 develop them, or make men of them. 



§ 



There seems to be the same excess of fear in the 

 world that there is of pain. How fearful most of the 

 wild creatures are ! and for reasons. Fear is necessary 

 to their self-preservation, hence Nature heaps the 

 measure. An animal is as afraid of a harmless thing 

 as of a dangerous. A horse is as afraid of an auto- 

 mobile as of a bear. Nature secures her end when 

 she makes the animal afraid of anything and every- 

 thing strange and unusual. She -wastes no time in 

 giving the animal the power to discriminate: an ex- 

 cess of fear can do no harm, and it may do good. To 

 trim and curtail and economize is not Nature's way. 

 She sows her seed broadcast, sure that some of 

 them will take. 



Fear in the child is, in our days for the most part 

 gratuitous. It is, of course, a survival from our ani- 

 mal or savage ancestors. There was a time when the 

 dark concealed a real foe, and when the strange 

 apparition meant harm or death. The warring of the 

 male animals over the females is wise ; the strongest 

 propagates the species, but see the pain and suffer- 

 ing that attend it, often death. What does Nature 

 care? Her ends are secured. Natural selection is a 

 painful and expensive process, but it goes. 

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