PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



mechanics (not counting that one has all the known and 

 unknown chemical elements cooling simultaneously), but 

 merely as mechanics this contraction gives energy enough 

 to squeeze vegetation through the pores of the imaginary 

 linen and to detach certain particles, leaving them still 

 a momentum. A body should cool with decreasing 

 speed in measure as it approaches the temperature of its 

 surroundings; however, the earth is still, I think, sup- 

 posed to be warmer than the surrounding unknown, and 

 is presumably still cooling, or at any rate it is not proved 

 that man is at the end of his physical changes. I return 

 to horned gods and the halo in a few paragraphs. It is 

 not proved that even the sort of impetus provided by a 

 shrinking of planetary surface is denied one. 



What is known is that man's great divergence has been 

 in the making of detached, resumable tools. 



That is to say, if an insect carries a saw, it carries 

 it all the time. The "next step," as in the case of the 

 male organ of the nautilus, is to grow a tool and de- 

 tach it. 



Man's first inventions are fire and the club, that is 

 to say he detaches his digestion, he finds a means to get 

 heat without releasing the calories of the log by internal 

 combustion inside his own stomach. The invention of 

 the first tool turned his mind (using this term in the 

 full sense) ; turned, let us say, his "brain" from his own 

 body. No need for greater antennae, a fifth arm, etc., 

 except, after a lapse, as a tour de force, to show that he 

 is still lord of his body. 



That is to say the langouste's long feelers, all sorts of 

 extravagances in nature may be taken as the result of a 

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