There remains yet another. I see you
stealing glances at those natural curiosities. In the study of them, you
would find, as I believe, more and more daily, a mental discipline superior
even to that which language or mathematics give. If I had been blest with
a son--but that is neither here nor there--it was my intention to have
educated him almost entirely as a naturalist. I think I should like to try
the experiment on a young man like yourself."
Sandy Mackaye's definition of legislation for the masses, "Fiat
experimentum in corpore vili," rose up in my thoughts, and, half
unconsciously, passed my lips. The good old man only smiled.
"That is not my reason, Mr. Locke. I should choose, by preference, a man
of your class for experiments, not because the nature is coarser, or less
precious in the scale of creation, but because I have a notion, for which,
like many others, I have been very much laughed at, that you are less
sophisticated, more simple and fresh from nature's laboratory, than the
young persons of the upper classes, who begin from the nursery to be more
or less trimmed up, and painted over by the artificial state of society--a
very excellent state, mind, Mr.
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