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Cornugaya Directory 01
Page 02
The grain of wheat is a part of the flower of the wheat plant, which,
when it becomes ripe, is easily separated. It contains a minute and
rudimentary plant; and, when it is sown, this gradually grows, or
becomes developed into, the perfect plant, with its stem, roots,
leaves, and flowers, which again give rise to similar seeds. No
mineral body runs through a regular series of changes of form and
size, and then gives off parts of its substance which take the same
course. Mineral bodies present no such development, and give off no
seeds or germs. They do not reproduce their kind.
Walking the other day in Cheapside I saw some turtles in Mr.
Sweeting's window, and was tempted to stay and look at them. As I
did so I was struck not more by the defences with which they were
hedged about, than by the fatuousness of trying to hedge that in at
all which, if hedged thoroughly, must die of its own defencefulness.
The holes for the head and feet through which the turtle leaks out,
as it were, on to the exterior world, and through which it again
absorbs the exterior world into itself--"catching on" through them
to things that are thus both turtle and not turtle at one and the
same time--these holes stultify the armour, and show it to have been
designed by a creature with more of faithfulness to a fixed idea,
and hence one-sidedness, than of that quick sense of relative
importances and their changes, which is the main factor of good
living.
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