THE NATURAL 



Intelligence, being but the ripe fruit of the general sensi- 

 bility, its intensity is very often found to be in a certain 

 relation with the sexual sensibility. Absolute coldness 

 might signify stupidity. There are, however, too many 

 exceptions for one to generalize in this matter. It hap- 

 pens indeed that intelligence instead of being the sum 

 total of the sensibility, is, so to speak, the deviation or 

 transmutation. There remains very little sensibility; 

 it is nearly all turned into intelligence. 



Every organized animal has a master: its nervous sys- 

 tem; and there is, doubtless, no real life save where a 

 nervous system exists, be it the magnificent infinitely 

 branching tree of mammals and birds, be it the double, 

 knotted cord of the mollusks, or the nail head which is 

 planted, in ascides, between the buccal and anal orifice. 

 As soon as this new matter appears, it reigns despoti- 

 cally, and the unforeseen appears in the world. One 

 would say a conqueror, or rather an intruder, a parasite 

 come in by stealth, and lifting itself into the royal role. 



Animals bear this tyranny better than man. Their 

 master asks fewer things. Often it only asks one: to 

 create a being in its exact likeness. The animal is sane, 

 that is to say, ruled; man is mad, that is to say, out of 

 rule: he has so many orders to execute at once, that he 

 scarcely does any one well. In civilized countries he 

 can hardly reproduce himself and the specie is in danger. 

 It would disappear, if the means of protecting it did not 

 compensate the sterility. 



One can not say that humanity has attained its in- 

 tellectual limits, although its physical evolution seems 

 completed; but as superior human specimens are nearly 

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