Making a small hole with my finger
in the ground, I placed a grain within it: "That," I said, "represents
you when you die." Covering it with earth, I continued, "That grain will
decay, but from it will rise the plant that will produce a reappearance
of the original form."
Commoro. - "Exactly so; that I understand. But the ORIGINAL grain does
NOT rise again; it rots like the dead man, and is ended; the fruit
produced is not the same grain that we buried, but the PRODUCTION of
that grain: so it is with man - I die, and decay, and am ended; but my
children grow up like the fruit of the grain. Some men have no children,
and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended."
I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. In this wild naked
savage there was not even a superstition upon which to found a religious
feeling; there was a belief in matter; and to his understanding
everything was MATERIAL. It was extraordinary to find so much clearness
of perception combined with such complete obtuseness to anything ideal.
Giving up the religious argument as a failure, I resolved upon more
practical inquiries.
