188 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



ounces of water collects between its membranes or 

 in its ventricles ; and, behold, the vaunted philo- 

 sopher, the lord of the creation, has suddenly be- 

 come a drivelling idiot ! " Toi qui dans ta folie 

 prends arrogamment le titre du roi de la nature 

 toi qui mesures et la terre et les cieux toi pour qui 

 ta vanite s'imagine que le tout a etc fait, parceque 

 tu es intelligent, il ne faut qu'un leger accident, 

 qu'un atome deplace, pour te degrader, pour te 

 ravir cette intelligence dont tu parois si fier !" 



But let us admit, for an instant, that all this were 

 so that nature planted mahogany-trees on purpose 

 to veneer Crockford's Rouge-et-Noir tables: this 

 detracts not an iota from the truth of what I have 

 asserted; because it must still be admitted, on 

 every hand, that the tree, as a tree, " has had foul 

 wrong." No one can deny that a tree, which has 

 been cut down and cut up piecemeal, has suffered 

 injury as a free has had the integrity of its per- 

 fection, as a tree, destroyed. My assertion, there- 

 fore, is still sound that you cannot withdraw any 

 object from its natural sphere, without detriment to 

 that object. 



Here is a limestone : it would have remained 

 perfect limestone, probably for ever, had it been 

 left in its natural position, the quarry. But I have 



