Thirdly:  Why cannot ’inertness, as being absolute inaction, belong to that which truly is?’ Why cannot a thing exist without doing anything?  Is not that just what millions of things actually do?  Or if you intend to twist the meaning of the substantive verb, and to say that merely to be is to do something,—­that simply to exist is a certain form of exertion and action,—­I shall grant, of course, that nothing whatever that exists is in that sense inert; but I shall affirm that you use the word inert in quite a different sense from the usual one.  And in that extreme and non-natural sense of the word, the phenomenon is no more inert than is the essence.  Certainly things seem to us to be:  and if just to be is to be active, then no phenomenon is inert; no single thing discerned by us appears to be inert.

Fourthly:  I grant that ’nature does act upon us, or we could not perceive it at all.’  But then I maintain that this kind of action is not action as men understand the word.  This kind of action is quite consistent with the general notion of inertness.  A thing may be inert, as mankind understand the word; and also active, as the author of this book understands the word.  To discern this sort of activity and life in nature we have no need to ’pass from death to life’ ourselves.  We simply need to have the thing pointed out to us, and it is seen at once.  It is playing with words to say that nature acts upon us, or we could not perceive it.  No doubt, when you stand before a tree, and look at it, it does act in so far as that it depicts itself upon your retina; but that action is quite consistent with what we understand by inertness.  It does not matter whether you say that your eye takes hold of the tree, or that the tree takes hold of your eye.  When you hook a trout, you may say either that you catch the fish, or that the fish catches you.  Is the alternative worth fighting about?  Which is the natural way of speaking:  to say that the man sees the tree, or that the tree shows itself to the man?  All the activity which our author claims for nature goes no farther than that.  Our reply is that that is not activity at all.  If that is all he contends for, we grant it at once; and we say that it is not in the faintest degree inconsistent with the fact of nature’s being inert, as that word is understood.  You come and tell me that Mr. Smith has just passed your window flying.  I say no; I saw him; he was not flying, but walking.  Ah, you reply, I hold that walking is an indicate flying; it is a rudimentary flying, the lowest form of flying; and therefore I maintain that he flew past the window.  My friend, I answer, if it be any satisfaction to you to use words in that way, do so and rejoice; only do not expect any human being to understand what you mean; and beware of the lunatic asylum.