The Caxtons — Complete

Now my father did not mean by that interrogatory to challenge philosophical inquiry, nor to demand of the honest but unenlightened woman who had just rushed into his study, a solution of that mystery, physiological and psychological, which has puzzled so many curious sages, and lies still involved in the question, What is man? For as we need not look further than Dr. Johnson's Dictionary to know that a boy is a male child, i. e. , the male young of man, so he who would go to the depth of things, and know scientifically what is a boy, must be able to ascertain what is a man.