on the earth for four-score and six changes of the seasons,
and all that time have I look'd at the growing and the dying trees, and
yet do I not know the reasons why the bud starts under the summer sun,
or the leaf falls when it is pinch'd by the frosts. Your l'arning,
though it is man's boast, is folly in the eyes of Him, who sits in
the clouds, and looks down, in sorrow, at the pride and vanity of his
creatur's. Many is the hour that I've passed, lying in the shades of the
woods, or stretch'd upon the hills of these open fields, looking up into
the blue skies, where I could fancy the Great One had taken his stand,
and was solemnising on the waywardness of man and brute, below, as I
myself had often look'd at the ants tumbling over each other in their
eagerness, though in a way and a fashion more suited to His mightiness
and power. Knowledge! It is his plaything. Say, you who think it so easy
to climb into the judgment-seat above, can you tell me any thing of the
beginning and the end? Nay, you're a dealer in ailings and cures: what
is life, and what is death? Why does the eagle live so long, and why is
the time of the butterfly so short? Tell me a simpler thing: why is this
hound so uneasy, while you, who have passed your days in looking into
books, can see no reason to be disturbed?"

The Doctor, who had been a little astounded by the dignity and energy
of the old man, drew a long breath, like a sullen wrestler who is just
released from the throttling grasp of his antagonist, and seized on the
opportunity of the pause to reply--

"It is his instinct."

"And what is the gift of instinct?"

"An inferior gradation of reason. A sort of mysterious combination of
thought and matter."

"And what is that which you call thought?"

"Venerable venator, this is a method of reasoning which sets at nought
the uses of definitions, and such as I do assure you is not at all
tolerated in the schools."

"Then is there more cunning in your schools than I had thought, for it
is a certain method of showing them their vanity," returned the trapper,
suddenly abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist was just
beginning to anticipate great delight, by turning to his dog, whose
restlessness he attempted to appease by playing with his ears. "This is
foolish, Hector; more like an untrained pup than a sensible hound; one
who has got his education by hard experience, and not by nosing over the
trails of other dogs, as a boy in th