1]

[1] We did rescue Mendel's from the dust heap; but perhaps it was
an exception.

* * * * *

Let me interrupt this lament to say a word for myself and my ancestors.
It is easy to blame us as undiscriminating, but we are at least full of
zest. And it's well to be interested, eagerly and intensely, in so many
things, because there is often no knowing which may turn out important.
We don't go around being interested on purpose, hoping to profit by it,
but a profit may come. And anyway it is generous of us not to be too
self-absorbed. Other creatures go to the other extreme to an amazing
extent. They are ridiculously oblivious to what is going on. The
smallest ant in the garden will ignore the largest woman who visits it.
She is a huge and most dangerous super-mammoth in relation to him, and
her tread shakes the earth; but he has no time to be bothered,
investigating such-like phenomena. He won't even get out of her way. He
has his work to do, hang it.

Birds and squirrels have less of this glorious independence of spirit.
They watch you closely--if you move around. But not if you keep still.
In other words, they pay no more attention than they can help, even to
mammoths.

We of course observe everything, or try to. We could spend our lives
looking on. Consider our museums for instance: they are a sign of our
breed. It makes us smile to see birds, like the magpie, with a mania
for this collecting--but only monkeyish beings could reverence museums
as we do, and pile such heterogeneous trifles and quantities in them.
Old furniture, egg-shells, watches, bits of stone.... And next door, a
"menagerie." Though our victory over all other animals is now aeons
old, we still bring home captives and exhibit them caged in our cities.
And when a species dies out--or is crowded (by us) off the planet--we
even collect the bones of the vanquished and show them like trophies.

* * * * *

Curiosity is a valuable trait. It will make the simians learn many
things. But the curiosity of a simian is as excessive as the toil of an
ant. Each simian will wish to know more than his head can hold, let
alone ever deal with; and those whose minds are active will wish to
know everything going. It would stretch a god's skull to accomplish
such an ambition, yet simians won't like to think it's beyond their
powers. Even small tradesmen and clerks, no mat