CHAPTER II.

THE STUDY OF NATURE.

After making many profound observations upon nature (having employed in the research my five senses, my spectacles, and a very large telescope), I said one day to Mr. Sidrac: “Unless I am much deceived, philosophy laughs at us. I cannot discover any trace of what the world calls nature; on the contrary, everything seems to me to be the result of art. By art the planets are made to revolve around the sun, while the sun revolves on its own axis. I am convinced that some genius has arranged things in such a manner that the square of the revolutions of the planets is always in proportion to the cubic root from their distance to their centre, and one had need be a magician to find out how this is accomplished. The tides of the sea are the result of art no less profound and no less difficult to explain.

“All animals, vegetables, and minerals are arranged with due regard to weight and measure, number and motion. All is performed by springs, levers, pulleys, hydraulic machines, and chemical combinations, from the insignificant flea to the being called man, from the grass of the field to the far-spreading oak, from a grain of sand to a cloud in the firmament of heaven. Assuredly, everything is governed by art, and the word nature is but a chimera.”

“What you say,” answered Mr. Sidrac, “has been said many years ago, and so much the better, for the probability is greater that your remark is true. I am always astonished when I reflect that a grain of wheat cast into the earth will produce in a short time above a handful of the same corn.” “Stop,” said I, foolishly, “you forget that wheat must die before it can spring up again, at least so they say at college.” My friend Sidrac, laughing heartily at this interruption, replied: “That assertion went down very well a few years ago, when it was first published by an apostle called Paul, but in our more enlightened age the meanest laborer knows that the thing is altogether too ridiculous even for argument.”

“My dear friend,” said I, “excuse the absurdity of my remarks; I have hitherto been a theologian, and one cannot divest one’s self in a moment of every silly opinion.”