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Cornugaya Directory 01
Page 04
Somewhat higher than the fish in the scale of life is the frog.
Although he begins life as a fish, and in the tadpole state breathes
by gills, he soon discards the water-diluted air of the pond, and with
perfect lungs boldly inhales the pure air of the upper world. His life
as a tadpole, although so fish-like, is much inferior to true fish
life: for though the fish has not the perfect lung, he has a
modification of it which he fills with air, not for breathing
purposes, but as an air-sac to make him float like a bubble in the
water. Will he rise to the surface? he inflates the air-bladder. Will
he sink to the bottom? he compresses the air-bladder. But in the frog
the air-bladder changes into the lungs, and is never the delicate
balloon which floats the fish in aqueous space. When the frog's lungs
are perfected, his gills close, and he forever abandons fish-life,
though being a cold-blooded creature he needs comparatively little
air, and delights to return to his childhood's home in the bottom of
the pond. But although he can stay under water for a long time, he is
obliged to hold his breath while there, and when he would breathe must
come to the surface to do so. It is possible to drown him by holding
him under water.
Presently my own blind finger-ends fished up the conclusion, that as
I had neither time nor money to spend on perfecting the chain that
would put me in full spiritual contact with Mr. Sweeting's turtles,
I had better leave them to complete their education at some one
else's expense rather than mine, so I walked on towards the Bank.
As I did so it struck me how continually we are met by this melting
of one existence into another. The limits of the body seem well
defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far.
What, for example, can seem more distinct from a man than his banker
or his solicitor? Yet these are commonly so much parts of him that
he can no more cut them off and grow new ones, than he can grow new
legs or arms; neither must he wound his solicitor; a wound in the
solicitor is a very serious thing. As for his bank--failure of his
bank's action may be as fatal to a man as failure of his heart. I
have said nothing about the medical or spiritual adviser, but most
men grow into the society that surrounds them by the help of these
four main tap-roots, and not only into the world of humanity, but
into the universe at large. We can, indeed, grow butchers, bakers,
and greengrocers, almost ad libitum, but these are low developments,
and correspond to skin, hair, or finger-nails. Those of us again
who are not highly enough organised to have grown a solicitor or
banker can generally repair the loss of whatever social organisation
they may possess as freely as lizards are said to grow new tails;
but this with the higher social, as well as organic, developments is
only possible to a very limited extent.
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