waters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-
babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which
is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and
a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.

"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught
one at least?"

Well. How do you know that somebody has not?

"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated
News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing,
and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see
what they would each say about it."

Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will
see before the end of the story.

"But a water-baby is contrary to nature."

Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such
things, when you grow older, in a very different way from that.
You must not talk about "ain't" and "can't" when you speak of this
great wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man knows only
the very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton
said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless
ocean.

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to
nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and