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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth
run mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom
than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; and
so forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I assure you I
have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney of
Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or
fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts,
and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts." People
would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to
nature;" and have thought you were telling stories - as the French
thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he
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