iliar enough in the experience and observation of any of us.
Intellectual interest in, and the scientific observation of, human
traits and human behavior have their origin in this natural interest and
unreflective observation by man of his fellows. History, ethnology,
folklore, all the comparative studies of single cultural traits, i.e.,
of language, of religion, and of law, are but the more systematic
pursuit of this universal interest of mankind in man.

2. Definition of Human Nature

The natural history of the expression "human nature" is interesting.
Usage has given it various shades of meaning. In defining the term more
precisely there is a tendency either unwarrantedly to narrow or unduly
to extend and overemphasize some one or another of the different senses
of the term. A survey of these varied uses reveals the common and
fundamental meaning of the phrase.

The use which common sense makes of the term human nature is
significant. It is used in varied contexts with the most divergent
implications but always by way of explanation of behavior that is
characteristically human. The phrase is sometimes employed with cynical
deprecation as, "Oh, that's human nature." Or as often, perhaps, as an
expression of approbation, "He's so human."

The weight of evidence as expressed in popular sayings is distinctly in
depreciation of man's nature.

It's human natur', p'raps,--if so,
Oh, isn't human natur' low,

are two lines from Gilbert's musical comedy "Babette's Love." "To err is
human, to forgive divine" reminds us of a familiar contrast. "Human
nature is like a bad clock; it might go right now and then, or be made
to strike the hour, but its inward frame is to go wrong," is a simile
that emphasizes the popular notion that man's behavior tends to the
perverse. An English divine settles the question with the statement,
"Human nature is a rogue and a scoundrel, or why would it perpetually
stand in need of laws and religion?"

Even those who see good in the natural man admit his native tendency to
err. Sir Thomas Browne asserts that "human nature knows naturally what
is good but naturally pursues what is evil." The Earl of Clarendon gives
the equivocal explanation that "if we did not take great pains to
corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us." Addison, from
the detached position of an observer and critic of manners and men,
concludes that "as man is a creature made up of different extremes, he