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Zaproburno Yollanica Directory 19
Page 10
While there is no necessity for supposing an elevation greater than that required to lay bare a passage for animals back and forth, yet soundings undertaken by the British government have established the fact, that the ocean deepens very gradually away from the shores of the main-land until a depth of six hundred feet is reached, when the shore falls away very suddenly. This is supposed to be the sea-coast of that time. The English Channel would then have existed as the valley of the Seine, and the Rhine have prolonged its flow over the present bed of the North Sea. As the land stood at this height through a large portion of the Glacial Age, it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that primitive tribes hunted back and forth along these valleys, and so doubtless many convincing proofs of their presence at that early day lie buried underneath the waves of the sea. In like manner, at the south, we know that elephants, lions, and hyenas passed freely from Africa to Spain, Italy, and the Island of Crete,<7> and, consequently, the Mediterranean Sea must have been bridged in one or two places at least.
Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature, as a wand, to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right, understanding it, where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon himself, with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission. For both the pause reinforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not perfect, be ever in practice, he shall as well practise his errors, as his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to help this, but by seasonable intermissions. But let not a man trust his victory over his nature, too far; for nature will lay buried a great time, and yet revive, upon the occasion or temptation. Like as it was with AEsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demutely at the board's end, till a mouse ran before her. Therefore, let a man either avoid the occasion altogether; or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved with it. A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there is no affectation; in passion, for that putteth a man out of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him. They are happy men, whose natures sort with their vocations; otherwise they may say, multum incola fuit anima mea; when they converse in those things, they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times; for his thoughts will fly to it, of themselves; so as the spaces of other business, or studies, will suffice. A man's nature, runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
That pedantic charge of inaccuracy, with which I have already dealt in another place, in connection with another and perhaps a greater man, is not applicable to Froude. He was hasty, and in his historical work the result certainly was that he put down things upon insufficient evidence, or upon evidence but half read; but even in his historical work (which deals remember, with the most highly controversial part of English history) he is as accurate as anybody else, except perhaps Lingard. That the man was by nature accurate, well read and of a good memory, appears continually throughout this book, and the more widely one has read one's self, the more one appreciates this truth.
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