Eric listened attentively while Sonnenkamp was informing him that the limbs must be cut in, so that the sap might all perfect the fruit, and not go too much to the formation of wood.
"Perhaps you have a feeling of pity for these clipped branches?" Sonnenkamp asked in a sharp tone.
"Not at all; but the old, natural form of the fruit-trees so well known to us—"
"Yes, indeed,"' Sonnenkamp broke in, "people are horrible creatures of prejudice! Is there any one who sees anything ugly, anything coercive, in pruning the vine three times every season? No one. No one looks for beauty, but for beautiful fruit, from the vine; so also from the fruit-tree. As soon as they began to bud and to graft, the way was indicated, and I am only following it consistently. The ornamental tree is to be ornamental, and the fruit-tree a fruit-tree, each after its kind. This apple-tree, must have its limbs just so, and have just so many of them, as will make it bear the largest apples and the greatest possible number. I want from a fruit-tree not wood, but fruit."
"But nature-—-"
"Nature! Nature!" Sonnenkamp exclaimed, in a contemptuous tone. "Nine-tenths of what they call nature is, nothing but an artificial sham, and a whimsical conceit. The spirit of nature and the spirit of the age are a pair of idols which you philosophers have manufactured for yourselves. There is no such thing as nature, and there is no such thing as an age; and even if there were both, you cannot predicate spirit of either of them."
Eric was deeply struck by this apparently combative and violently aggressive manner of speaking; and yet more so, when Sonnenkamp now leaned over suddenly, and said:—
"The real man to educate would be he who was able to train men as these trees are trained: for some immediate end, with no superfluous trash and no roundabout methods. What they call nature is a fable. There is no nature, or at least only an infinitesimal particle. With us human beings everything is habit, education, tradition. There's no such thing as nature."
"That is something new to me," Eric said, when he was at last able to put in a word. "The gentlemen of tradition call us men of science deniers of God, but a denier of nature I have never until now become acquainted with, and never have even heard him mentioned. You are joking."
"Well, yes, I am joking," said Sonnenkamp, bitterly.