Note 175 — Front matter (continued 2)

To what extremes such doctrines must logically lead is illustrated by Mr. Edmund Selous in his very interesting Bird Watching, where he casually observes, as a matter of course, that the "life-part" of a tom-tit is as important in the sum of things as Napoleon's (p. 248), and declares elsewhere, more formally (p. 335)—"Surely, a beautiful butterfly, that, for all time, charms—and raises by charming—some number of those who see it, does more good on this earth than any single man or woman, who, 'departing,' leaves no 'foot-prints on the sands of time.' Homer, for instance, has left his Iliad and Odyssey, and these have been, and still are, mighty in their effects. But let them once perish, and Homer will be caught up and overtaken by almost any bird or butterfly—even a brown one."