"And when the House of Peers withholds / Its legislative hand / And noble statesmen do not itch / To interfere in matters which / They do not understand..." He's not quite singing, but certainly speaking, and in character.* "Yes--humans do it (some, at any rate); we don't know that nature values it. I do."
He considers this. "Literally speaking, of course. In the sense that you first meant... one must sometimes scrape traces of clay from unlikely places, which you know as well as I. To make a brick, first you allow that there could be such a thing as a brick, and then decide that bricks are important, and then you spend a lot of time reading up on those who have claimed mastery at brickmaking, sorting the clay from the mud. I was given," he admits, "access to a certain amount of clay from birth, but a fair amount of the information that can raise one from bricklayer to sculptor is available in the mundane world, passed over as archeological trivia and mythology by those who neither believe in bricks nor find the story of the brick compelling."
He frowns slightly, decides that if Holmes had meant aim he wouldn't have said point, and points to a nearby tree with his index finger, closing his left eye.
* Did I already link you to this? Holmes would at least know of Iolanthe, anyway. Aren't you supposed to keep both eyes open, tho?