"

He pointed out how the experiment might be made on hens, then mounted
his nag, and slowly disappeared from their view.

Half a league further on they noticed, in a farmyard, a pyramidal object
stretched out towards the horizon. It might have been compared to an
enormous bunch of black grapes marked here and there with red dots. It
was, in fact, a long pole, garnished, according to the Norman custom,
with cross-bars, on which were perched turkeys bridling in the sunshine.

"Let us go in." And Pecuchet accosted the farmer, who yielded to their
request.

They traced a line with whiting in the middle of the press, tied down
the claws of a turkey-cock, then stretched him flat on his belly, with
his beak placed on the line. The fowl shut his eyes, and soon presented
the appearance of being dead. The same process was gone through with the
others. Bouvard passed them quickly across to Pecuchet, who ranged them
on the side on which they had become torpid.

The people about the farm-house exhibited uneasiness. The mistress
screamed, and a little girl began to cry.

Bouvard loosened all the turkeys. They gradually revived; but one could
not tell what might be the consequences.

At a rather tart remark of Pecuchet, the farmer grasped his pitchfork
tightly.

"Clear out, in God's name, or I'll smash your head!"

They scampered off.

No matter! the problem was solved: ecstasy is dependent on material
causes.

What, then, is matter? What is spirit? Whence comes the influence of the
one on the other, and the reciprocal exchange of influence?

In order to inform themselves on the subject, they made researches in
the works of Voltaire, Bossuet, Fenelon; and they renewed their
subscription to a circulating library.

The ancient teachers were inaccessible owing to the length of their
works, or the difficulty of the language; but Jouffroy and Damiron
initiated them into modern philosophy, and they had authors who dealt
with that of the last century.

Bouvard derived his arguments from Lamettrie, Locke, and Helvetius;
Pecuchet from M. Cousin, Thomas Reid, and Gerando. The former adhered to
experience; for the latter, the ideal was everything. The one belonged
to the school of Aristotle, the other to that of Plato; and they
proceeded to discuss the subject.

"The soul is immaterial," said Pecuchet.

"By no means," said his friend. "Lunacy, chloroform, a bleeding will
overthrow it; and, inasmuch as it is not always think