To
place stuffed birds and beasts in glass cases, to arrange insects in
cabinets, and dried plants in drawers, is merely the drudgery and
preliminary of study; to watch their habits, to understand their relations
to one another, to study their instincts and intelligence, to ascertain
their adaptations and their relations to the forces of Nature, to realize
what the world appears to them; these constitute, as it seems to me at
least, the true interest of natural history, and may even give us the clue
to senses and perceptions of which at present we have no conception. [5]
From this point of view the possibilities of progress seem to me to be
almost unlimited.
So far again as the actual condition of man is concerned, the fact that
there has been some advance cannot, I think, be questioned.
In the Middle Ages, for instance, culture and refinement scarcely existed
beyond the limits of courts, and by no means always there. The life in
English, French, and German castles was rough and almost barbarous.
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