268 EDUCATION. 
the father ventures to nourish it. The mother takes some % 
relaxation, and frequently absents herself. She often perches 
on the rim of the nest, and lovingly contemplates her off- 
spring. But the latter stirs, feels the need of movement. Poor 
mother ! in a little while it will escape thee. 
“Tn this first education of the still passive and elementary life, 
as in the second (and active, that of flight), of which I have already 
spoken, one fact, evident and clearly discernible at every moment, 
was, that everything was proportioned with infinite prudence 
to the condition least foreseen, a condition essentially variable, the 
nursling’s individual strength; the quantity, quality, and mode of 
preparation of the food, the cares of warmth, friction, cleanliness, 
were all ordered with a skill and an attention to detail, modified 
according to circumstance, such as the most delicate and provident 
woman could hardly have surpassed. 
“When I saw her heart throbbing violently, and her eye kindling 
as she gazed on her precious treasure, I exclaimed: ‘Could I do 
otherwise near the cradle of my son?’ ” 
Ah, if she be a machine, what am I myself? and who will then 
prove that Iam a person? If she has not a soul, who will answer 
to me for the human soul? To what thereafter shall we trust? And 
is not all this world a dream, a phantasmagoria, if, in the most 
