Current Topics and Events

Abstract

SIR DAVID PRAIN discoursed recently to the Gilbert White Fellowship on “The Rev. Gilbert White and Moral History,” and his address has been issued as a pamphlet. His aim is to show that Gilbert White was as much interested in human manners and customs as in the life of plants and animals. These were the days of all-round interests, and Gilbert was as much a moral as a natural historian. The term “moral history,” which sounds strangely in our ears, used to be familiar as a name for the study of human “mores,” but without sounding the ethical note. After all, the sociologist's “Folk, work, place” is at once the antecedent and the continuation of the naturalist's “organism, function, and environment.” Sir David Prain gives many illustrations of Gilbert White's interest in man's customs. The letters show his curiosity about the different kinds of sheep on different parts of the Sussex downs, the superstitions regarding cleft-ashes and shrew-ashes, the possible causes of leprosy, the far-reaching effects of the sowing of grasses, which was probably introduced to Selborne when his grandfather was vicar. To the historian of the changes in man's habits and customs the “Natural History of Selborne “is good reading. The letters tell us of the “comparatively modern “use of linen changes next the skin, “the plenty of good wheaten bread,” “how vastly the consumption of vegetables has increased,” and how “the religious, being men of leisure, and keeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the first people among us that had gardens and fruit trees in any perfection.” Sir David Prain has evidently found his theme congenial, and his account of Gilbert White's “Moral History “is as entertaining as it is instructive. He throws in a good deal of botanical and historical lore of his own. The gleams of subtle Scotch humour are very enjoyable. Perhaps it should be noted that though Gilbert White was much interested in “moral history,” he does not himself use the term; we cannot hope that it will be revived.