Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-12-15
MORE NATURAL HISTORY.

\
MORE NATURAL HISTORY.
1t is II matter for general congrutula-.
1 ton that the regrettable mature fax
ing" controversy into which several
| leading thinkers of the nation were re-
Gently drawn, has not resulted In ex-
| tinguishns the type Of literature that
| provoked this lamentable discussion
After all the chief fault found with.
Ernest Thompson Setons work was
that he made the animals too much
| like human beings. He has already
shown that he is able really to do what
| Gilbert White had almost done now
and then. This was to project the
imagination from the shore of ascer-$
tanned fact into the unknown Of the
animal consciousness, ana see, quite
probably. how the animals looked upon
their world.
This achievement was so new and so.
beautiful thatSit captivated the popular
mind and heart. Most people at heart
really love nature; and the mere popu-
larity of the books he wrote shows that
they prefer this sort OF animal stories
! dry and technical learning.
And what is there SO fundamentally
Tropg in attributing to the lower ami
| mails, certain feelings and emotions
which human beings have? II is, OF
course. Innttcr Of grave doubt as to
| just how Ear we may properly go In
/ u, lie. nj H.
| tributes of the human spirit. YET that
to sune degree theysnlay possess these
attributes is plain and almost In
evitable Inference from their actions,
| expressions, and acts Of fidelity.
Animal stories have always been
popular The Fables of Aesop." says
| atcontelnporary,t though put into Il Latin
dress some fifteen centuries ago, were
old when Homcrs heroes talked much,
| and fought occasionally, on the truly
windy" plain Of Troy.
4 THE animals or these stories are,
/ however, but men disguised: and 1t Is
only within living memory that writ
| at animals and their doings as, VIC may
| with some rcasonableness believe, the
animals look ut Notwithstanding
animals as real people, as, of course.
| in their own world they are.
The same contemporary recalls that
il was in the year when the American
Republic began business under the Con-
stitution that a modest and elderly
| English clergyman, who by preference
had remained merely a country curate,
published THE Natural History of Sell
borne, the fruit of years of loving
study of the animal life of the parish
/ in which nearly all his days had been
spent. s
| We quote from the ntcr-Ocean:
yet though the name of Gilbert
/ White is one of the few for which liz
/ crary Immortality may be safely pre-
i 1icted. his viewpoint of animals was
still consciously from without and
l above. Only now and then and I'M
/ consciously did his gentle soul swing
/ round and see animals somewhat as
4 they may be believed to see them
4 selves
4 INSPIRED by Gilbert White in meth
4 cd. there arose Il school of observers of
| nature for literary purposes. Yet the
/ study of these writer's was still chiefly
1 from viewpoint wholly human. They
/ were more concerned to find thoughts
! about animals for human editication
4 than to understand how animals might
think about themselves and man, They
! did good service in cultivating love OF
outdoors and its tenants, but their work
1 was marked by II puny sort of moralz-
l ing which missed the. heart of the mat
l ter from the animal viewpoint"
nj &c Z