in relation to the Whole, which you are unable to perceive. Though
Nature is like unto herself in the organizing force or in her
principles which are infinite, she is not so in her finite effects.
Thus you will never find in Nature two objects identically alike. In
the Natural Order two and two never make four; to do so, four exactly
similar units must be had, and you know how impossible it is to find
two leaves alike on the same tree, or two trees alike of the same
species. This axiom of your numeration, false in visible nature, is
equally false in the invisible universe of your abstractions, where
the same variance takes place in your ideas, which are the things of
the visible world extended by means of their relations; so that the
variations here are even more marked than elsewhere. In fact, all
being relative to the temperament, strength, habits, and customs of
individuals, who never resemble each other, the smallest objects take
the color of personal feelings. For instance, man has been able to
create units and to give an equal weight and value to bits of gold.
Well, take the ducat of the rich man and the ducat of the poor man to
a money-changer and they are rated exactly equal, but to the mind of
the thinker one is of greater importance than the other; one
represents a month of comfort, the other an ephemeral caprice. Two and
two, therefore, only make four through a false conception.

"Again: fraction does not exist in Nature, where what you call a
fragment is a finished whole. Does it not often happen (have you not
many proofs of it?) that the hundredth part of a substance is stronger
than what you term the whole of it? If fraction does not exist in the
Natural Order, still less shall we find it in the Moral Order, where
ideas and sentiments may be as varied as the species of the Vegetable
kingdom and yet be always whole. The theory of fractions is therefore
another signal instance of the servility of your mind.