To comprehend nature it is of importance that we never substitute ourselves for it. The corrections that a man imposes upon himself are a mass of mistakes. The tiger has claws and teeth and uses them skilfully; man at times shows himself inferior. Possessing intelligence, too often he strives to turn to that. Animals respect everything and touch nothing. The dog loves his master, and has no thought of criticizing him. The average man does not care that his daughter should be beautiful. He has in his mind certain ideas of manner and instruction, and the beauty of his daughter does not enter into the program that he has made. But the daughter herself feels the influence of nature, and displays her modest and triumphant movements, which this blind one does not see, but which fascinate the artist. The artist who tells us of his ideal commits the same error that this average man commits. His ideal is false, in the name of this ideal he pretends to rectify his model, retouching a profound organism which admirably combined laws regulate. Through his so-called corrections he destroys the ensemble; he composes a mosaic instead of creating a work of art; the faults of his model do not exist. If we correct that which we call a fault, we simply present something in the place of that which nature has presented. We destroy the equilibrium; the rectified part is always that which is necessary to the harmony of the whole. There is nothing paradoxical here, because a law that is all-powerful keeps the harmony of opposites. That is the law of life. Everything, therefore, is good, but we discover this only when our thought acquires power; that is to say, when it attaches itself indissolubly to nature, for then it becomes part of a great whole, a part of united and complex forces. Otherwise it is a miserable, debased, detached part contending with a whole that is formed of innumerable units. Nature, therefore, is the only guide that it is necessary to follow. She gives us the truth of an impression because she gives us that of its forms, and if we copy this with sincerity, she points out the means of uniting these forms and expressing them.