40 
NATURE S APPEAL. 
through the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could 
feel the great earth speaking to me." This, you see, was no 
reasoning on his part, but something which stirred within the 
" abysmal depths of his personality " like the voice from an 
unseen world ; and so no doubt it was, the voice of countless 
generations of ancestors who lived by the chase and who wor- 
shipped the great forces of Nature. 
One other naturalist, and only one, have I time to refer to ; 
a typical man for my purpose- -Charles Darwin. 
He belonged to a family that produced more than one famous 
naturalist. His special proclivities may be said, therefore, to be 
inherited. Then it may be noted, as bearing on my contention, 
that he gradually, as manhood came on, lost his " aesthetic 
sense " to a great extent. He was in youth very fond of poetry, 
also of music, and to some extent was fond of paintings. These 
senses he almost entirely lost. He never quite lost his delight 
in fine scenery. He says, 44 In 1822 a vivid delight in scenery 
was first awakened in my mind . . . and this has lasted 
longer than any other aesthetic pleasure." Instincts, as we shall 
see directly, would naturally be inherited at certain periods of life, 
to decay afterwards. 
In his young days he was passionately fond of shooting. He 
says, 44 I do not believe that anyone could have shown more zeal 
for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds." He, like 
Richard Jefferies, talks with raptureof his first snipe. His father once 
said to him (Life and Letters, p. 32, Chap II.) 44 You care for nothing 
but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace 
to yourself and all your family." He little realized that this was 
the strong appeal of instincts which would lead him on to assured 
fame. 
In his 44 Journal of Researches" (p. 368) he has the following : 
44 It has been said that the love of the chase is an inherent de- 
light in man — a relic of an instinctive passion. If so, I am sure 
the pleasure of living in the open air, with the sky for a roof 
and the ground for a table, is part of the same feeling. // is the 
savage returning to his wild and native habits." Notice that 
Darwin's first connection w T ith Natural History was his love of 
sport ; then he became a great collector, beginning with beetles, 
then a traveller into uncivilized countries, where he felt, as the 
last quotation shows, the true instinctive love for wild scenery, 
savage primeval man, wild animals and plants, and the open 
wild life of the woods and plains. He was, as it seems to me, 
obeying all this time, not the voice of reason, but the strong, 
imperative call of instinctive feeling, and this was gradually 
leading him, as it often does in such cases, to a more reason- 
ing investigation of all that gave him so much pleasure ; and as 
his mental faculties grew, his instincts waned ; he became more 
a creature of reason, less a creature of instinct. But with his 
instincts for the chase, for savage life, for collecting, and so on, 
he also lost, what I believe are also chiefly at first instinctive, his 
aesthetic sense ; his love for poetry and music ; and he became 
