discussing?

"I found myself one day on the slope of a hill named Yung-Tshi, and I
remarked that the majority of the trees were stript of their foliage.

"The season seeming to me not sufficiently advanced for this condition of
vegetation, I exprest my astonishment to a passer-by, who replied to me:

"'Alas! This occurs every year at the same time, and it is not well to
cultivate trees on the height of Yung-Tshi, for the sun, being too hot,
dries them up before the time when the foliage ought to fall.'

"A few days afterward my steps lead me on the opposite slope of the
same hill.

"There the trees were covered with foliage, still green but uncommon, and
their appearance indicated an unhealthy condition of growth.

"'Alas!' said a man who was working in the hedges to me, 'it is not well
to cultivate trees on the height of Tung-Tshi, for the sun never shines
there, and they can only acquire the vigor they would possess if they
were planted in another country.'

"And, altho recognizing the truth of these two opinions, so
contradictory, I could not help thinking that they were the reproduction
of those which men, deprived of common sense, express every day.

"The same hill produced a vegetation, affected in different ways, by
reason of different causes; and the people, instead of taking into
consideration how carelessly they had chosen the location of their