Читать книгу Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Coleridge Samuel Taylor - Страница 40
TABLE TALK
May 2. 1830
ОглавлениеPLANTS.—INSECTS.—MEN.—DOG.—ANT AND BEE
Plants exist in themselves. Insects by, or by means of, themselves. Men, for themselves. The perfection of irrational animals is that which is best for them; the perfection of man is that which is absolutely best. There is growth only in plants; but there is irritability, or, a better word, instinctivity, in insects.
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You may understand by insect, life in sections—diffused generally over all the parts.
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The dog alone, of all brute animals, has a [*Greek: storgae], or affection upwards to man.
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The ant and the bee are, I think, much nearer man in the understanding or faculty of adapting means to proximate ends than the elephant.42
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I remember Mr. C. was accustomed to consider the ant, as the most intellectual, and the dog as the most affectionate, of the irrational creatures, so far as our present acquaintance with the facts of natural history enables us to judge.—ED.
