If we have had no trouble with them, we say they have
"agreed" with us; if we have been unable to make them see things from our
points of view, we say they "disagree" with us, and avoid being on more
than distant terms with them for the future. If we have helped ourselves
to too much, we say we have got more than we can "manage." But then,
animals are eaten too. They convert one another, almost as much as they
convert plants. And an animal is no sooner dead than a plant will
convert it back again. It is obvious, however, that no schism could have
been so long successful, without having a good deal to say for itself.
Neither party has been quite consistent. Who ever is or can be? Every
extreme--every opinion carried to its logical end--will prove to be an
absurdity. Plants throw out roots and boughs and leaves: this is a kind
of locomotion; and as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed out, they do
sometimes approach nearly to what may be called travelling; a man of
consistent character will never look at a bough, a root, or a tendril
without regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipled compromise. On the
other hand, many animals are sessile, and some singularly successful
genera, as spiders, are in the main liers-in-wait. It may appear,
however, on the whole, like reopening a settled question to uphold the
principle of being busy and attentive over a small area, rather than
going to and fro over a larger one, for a mammal like man, but I think
most readers will be with me in thinking that, at any rate as regards art
and literature, it is he who does his small immediate work most carefully
who will find doors open most certainly to him, that will conduct him
into the richest chambers.
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