Thus saith the sage in Book X.of the Ponderings, 'Zermalmende,' the title: 'Je pense,' the motto:--'My supremacy over creation, boasteth man, is declared in my natural attitude:--I stand erect! But so do the palm-trees; and the giraffes that graze off their tops.

And the fowls of the air fly high over our heads; and from the place where we fancy our heaven to be, defile the tops of our temples.

Belike, the eagles, from their eyries look down upon us Mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways.

And cunning though we be, some things, hidden from us, may not be mysteries to them.

Having five keys, hold we all that open to knowledge?
Deaf, blind, and deprived of the power of scent, the bat will steer its way unerringly:--could we?
Yet man is lord of the bat and the brute; lord over the crows; with whom, he must needs share the grain he garners.