ABSTRACT
When people make a tool, like an axe, they are not surprised if after a little, the edge grows dull, or the handle loose. Wood and iron are brought artificially together, and called an axe by virtue of the use they acquire in that conjunction. Yet those materials had a life of their own before, and retain that life fully while called an axe; and they continue it afterwards when, being broken up and released from their incidental function, they form an axe no longer. In such a case the independent nature of the materials is obvious, and the precarious and external way in which they remain effectively an axe is plain to those who must be continually sharpening and repairing old axes and making new ones.
