viii 
SELBORNE. 
at variance with the fact, and from actual observation we say 
with confidence that the best way of securing for any rural 
place the maximum of rural intelligence and rural enjoyment 
would be to turn it to a Selborne. 
The influence of locality upon character, though often over- 
looked, is much greater than those who have not made it the 
subject of direct and continued observation would be led to sup- 
pose. We can easily perceive the external differences of appear- 
ance which are produced by great differences of latitude and 
climate ; and we can also observe how the expressions of features 
and the tones of voices vary in different countries or different 
districts of the same country. Those finer shades, however, in 
which the moral and intellectual characters of men are influenced 
by their localities, are not so open to common observation, 
though in themselves of m^ore importance than the others. Those 
who are born and bred in towns are less affected by natural 
causes than those who are born and bred in the country, because 
their characters are altogether of a more artificial cast, and thus 
justify the remark of the amiable and philosophic Cowper : 
" God made the country, and man made the town.'* 
In forming an estimate of the influence of locality, or of any other 
natural circumstance, we have therefore to attend chiefly to the 
difference between one rural district and another ; and here it 
will invariably be found that the finer the air, the more beautiful 
the scenery, and the more nearly the whole population approxi- 
mate to an equality with each other, the average character both 
intellectual and moral is always the higher. 
Selborne enjoys all these advantages. Its air is exceedingly 
pure and healthy, its scenery beautiful and diversified, and there 
is no great man resident within the parish, beneath whose 
shadow the people grow up feeble and etiolated, as herbs do 
under the shade of a great tree. There is no doubt that those 
were the circumstances which so strongly prompted Gilbert 
White to the observation and study of nature, and which made 
him prefer following nature herself, in his lovely retreat at Sel- 
borne, to the ambitious wars and wranglings of College Sophs 
and Society's Councils. Learning, leisure, and the absence of 
worldly ambition, of course enabled White to carry his pursuits 
to that perfection which has so deservedly won him a name ; 
but still he was indebted to Selborne for the germ and the im- 
