42 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He 
pitied him too much. The means were simple and 
near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue 
that would save him from the dissolution which so 
appalled him. He would be startled to hear in 
how small a thing and in how insignificant a 
creature resided the principle that could make his 
body, like his spirit, immortal. But exceeding 
great power often existed in small compass : witness 
the adder's tooth, which was to our sight no more 
than the point of the smallest thorn. Now, in the 
small ant there exists a principle of a greater 
potency than any other in nature; so strong and 
penetrating was it that even the dull and brutish 
kind of men who inquire not into hidden things 
know something of its power. But the greatest of 
all the many qualities of this acid was unknown to 
them. The ants were a small people, but exceed- 
ingly wise and powerful. If a little human child 
had the strength of an ant he would surpass in 
power the mightiest giant that ever lived. In the 
same way ants surpassed men in wisdom; and this 
strength and wisdom was the result of that acid 
principle in them. Now, if any person should be 
able to overcome his repugnance to so strange a 
food as to sustain himself on ants and nothing else, 
the effect of the acid on him would be to change 
and harden his flesh and make it impervious to 
