nature's appeal. 
41 
more and more, as he himself expressed it, a machine for grinding 
out generalisations from facts. 
(3) In what kind of character is this love for Natural History 
usually developed ? This, as I have before said, is not easy to 
answer, because it is only the eminent men who leave a record 
behind them. But that it is not confined to those of large mental 
calibre is pretty certain. I believe it to be quite common amongst 
all sorts and conditions of men, professional, business, literary, 
or scientific. It seems to me to be sometimes almost entirely 
absent — and perhaps more so in the very studious and in the 
weakly. In young people with the " Society " instinct, it is also 
apparently often absent ; and is, on the whole, strongest in the 
robust, and in those inclined to field sports, shooting, fishing, &c. 
Quite feeble-minded people possess it, I believe, as well as the 
highly intellectual. This would tend to show its instinctive nature ; 
its independence of mental gifts. 
(4) As to its beginnings in young children. I have already referred 
to this, but other points may be emphasized. Not only is it true, 
as Gilbert says : — 
if Every boy and every gal 
That's born into the world alive, 
Is either a little liberal 
Or else a little conservative," 
but there is a much deeper and more important distinction 
mentioned in the first line. The child must be either a little girl 
or a little boy. My point is this : — Their instinctive natures are 
bound to be very different. Ever since mankind appeared on the 
earth the man has had to hunt for food, and the woman has 
looked after domestic arrangements. There have been rare ex- 
ceptions ; but as a rule it has been as I say, and the sure proof 
of this is found in the different tastes or instincts of the 
two ; the little girl likes her doll and her doll's clothes, and the 
little boy likes to play at being on a desert island, being attacked 
by savages, hunting, shooting, and fighting. He also enjoys 
games in which sudden surprises, jumping out and catching the 
unwary, &c, form a prominent part. And so it follows that the 
boy has the first instinctive tendencies to Natural History most 
strongly marked, and as a matter of fact field Natural History 
can claim many more male than female followers, partly from the 
above reason, but partly of course from other more obvious ones 
which prevent a woman from following the rough and tumble of 
a naturalist's life. If the little girl loves Nature, as she often does, 
she arrives at that condition much more by her sense of beauty. 
She follows Nature, but is not called by her. She travels towards 
her over the sun-lit hills of reason and love for the beautiful ; 
whereas the boy travels by the dark valleys of instinct, where 
often cruel spectres haunt him ; and in some of these valleys he 
becomes for the time a savage, and delights to chase and kill 
anything that will run away from him. 
For my purpose, then, we have to deal chiefly with the boy ; 
and no one can doubt that the boy usually has at one period of his 
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