CHAPTER XIV 



THE CAPRICORN 



THE GRUB S HOME 



AN eighteenth-century philosopher, Condillac, 

 describes an imaginary statue, organised like a 

 man, but with none of a man's senses. He 

 then pictures the effect of endowing it with the five 

 senses, one by one, and the first sense he gives it is that 

 of smell. The statue, having no sense but smell, in- 

 hales the scent of a rose, and out of that single impression 

 creates a whole world of ideas. In my youth I owed 

 some happy moments to that statue. I seemed to see it 

 come to life in that action of the nostrils, acquiring 

 memory, concentration, judgment, and other mental 

 qualities, even as still waters are aroused and rippled 

 by the impact of a grain of sand. I recovered from my 

 illusion under the teaching of my abler master the animal. 

 The Capricorn taught me that the problem is more ob- 

 scure than the Abbe Condillac led me to suppose. 



When my winter supply of firewood is being prepared 

 for me with wedge and mallet, the woodman selects, by 

 my express orders, the oldest and most ravaged trunks 



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