312 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



Add the marvellous work of continual purification of everything 

 dangerous and unclean, which some species accomplish. If this war 

 and this work ceased but for one day, man would disappear from the 

 earth. 



This daily victory of the beloved son of light over death, over a 

 murderous and tenebrous life, is the fitting theme of his song, of 

 that hymn of joy with which the bird salutes each Dawn. 



But, besides song, the bird has many other languages. Like 

 man, he prattles, recites, converses. He and man are the only beings 

 which have really a language. Man and the bird are the voice of 

 the world. 



The bird, with its gift of augury, is ever drawing near to man, 

 who is ever inflicting injury upon him. He undoubtedly divines, 

 and has a presentiment of, what he will one day become when 

 he emerges from the barbarism in which he is now unhappily 

 plunged. 



He recognizes in him the creature unique, sanctified, and blessed, 

 who ought to be the arbiter of all^ who should accomplish the destiny 

 of this globe by one supreme act of good — the union of all life and 

 the reconciliation of all beings. 



This pacific union must after a time be effected by a great art of 

 education and initiation, which man begins to comprehend. 





Page 64. Training for flight (see also p. 84). — Is it wrong for 

 man, in his reveries, to beguile himself into a belief that he will one 

 day be more than man, to attribute to himself wings ? Dream or pre- 

 sentiment, it matters not. 



It is certain that a power of flight such as the bird possesses is 

 truly a sixth sense. It would be absurd to see in it only an auxiharx 



