THE MICROSCOPE:--HAS THE INSECT A PHYSIOGNOMY?
Armed with that sixth sense which man has achieved for himself, I can
move forward, at pleasure, in any direction. It is in my power to track
out, to reach, to compute the spheres, and gravitate with them in
their vast orbits. But I feel much more strongly attracted towards the
other abyss--that of the infinitely little. In its atoms I discover an
intensity of energy which charms and astounds me. And I myself, what am
I but an atom? Neither Jupiter nor Sirius, those enormous globes at so
great a distance from, and possessing so little sympathy with me, will
teach me the secret of terrestrial life. But these, on the contrary,
surround and press upon me, injure me or lend me their assistance. If
they are not of my own kind, they are at all events associated with me.
Ay, fatally associated.
And yet I cannot fly from them: swarms haunt the very air which I
breathe,--what do I say? float in the fluids of my body. It is my
interest to know them. But my sovereign interest is to escape from my
deplorable and wretched ignorance, and not to quit this world until I
have peered into the infinite.
Full of such ideas, I addressed myself to one of the philosophers of
the present day who have made the greatest and most successful use
of the microscope,--the celebrated Dr. Robin. Under his direction, I
purchased from the skilful optician Nachet an excellent instrument, and
planted myself before my window on a very beautiful day.
I have said it,--the microscope is much more than a mere magnifying
glass. It is an aid, a servant who has hands to supplement your
own--eyes, and movable eyes, which by their changes enable you to
see an object at a suitable magnitude, and either in detail or as a
whole. One perfectly understands the all-absorbing attraction which it
exercises; however great the fatigue it causes, one cannot separate
one's-self from it. Its _début_, as we have seen, was signalized by
its slaying its creator, Swammerdam. How many workmen has it not
since deprived, if not of life, at least of sight? The first of the
two Hubers became blind at a comparatively early age. The illustrious
author of the great work on the cockchafer, M. Strauss, is nearly so.
Our pallid but enthusiastic Robin is already on the same descent, but
pursues his studies without pause. The seduction is too potent. Who can
renounce the truth, after once beholding it? Who can willingly return
into the world of errors wherein men exist? Better not to see at all,
than always to see things falsely.
Behold me, then, face to face with my little man of copper. I lost not
an instant in interrogating the oracle. And its first and somewhat
rough reply respecting the two objects I presented was:--
One was the human hand, white and delicate,--the left hand, the idler,
and that of a person who did no work.
The other, a spider's foot.
To the naked eye the former object seemed agreeable enough; the other,
a tiny, obscure blade, of a dirty brown, and somewhat repulsive.
In the microscope the effect was precisely the opposite. In the
spider's foot, easily cleansed of a few downy spots, appeared a
magnificent comb of the most beautiful shell, which, far from being
dirty, by its extreme polish was rendered incapable of being soiled;
everything glided off it. This object would seem to serve two ends:
that of a very delicate hand, through which the spinner, in rising or
descending, suffers its thread to glide; and that of a comb, with which
the attentive labourer holds its stuff, while at work, in the required
position, until the woven threads--more like a cloud--grow firm and
strong, are dried by the air, and no longer fall back floating and
wavy, but useless.
As for the human hand, the part exposed under the microscope
seemed, even with the smallest lens, a vague and immense substance,
incomprehensible through its very coarseness.
Even with a medium lens, of only twelve or fifteen times magnifying
power, it seemed to be a yellowish, reddish tissue, coarse and dry,
ill-woven,--a kind of wiry taffeta, in which each mesh was irregularly
puffed up.
Nothing could be more humiliating!
This pitiless judge, pitiless even in its treatment of the flowers,
behaves with terrible severity towards the human flower. The freshest
and most charming will act wisely in not attempting the experiment.
She would shudder at herself. Her dimples would deepen into abysses!
The light down of the peach which crowns her beautiful skin with the
bloom of delicacy would show like rough thickets, or rather like savage
forests.
After my first experiment, I felt that the too truthful oracle not
only altered our ideas of proportion, but of appearances, colours,
forms--transfiguring everything, in fact, from the false to the true.
Let us be resigned. Whatever the organ of truth may tell us, I thank
it, and I will welcome it though it declare me to be a monster. But
such is not the case. If it change with some severity our notions
of the surface, on the other hand it reveals to us worlds of truly
unbounded beauty beneath it. A hundred things in anatomy which seem
horrible to the unassisted sight, acquire a touching and impressive
delicacy, and a poetical charm which approaches the sublime. This is
not the place for discussing such a subject. But a mere drop of blood,
of a brickdust-red by no means agreeable to the naked eye, heavy,
thick, and opaque, if you look at it when dry, under the magnifying
glass, presents to you a delicious rose-bloom arborescence, with
delicate ramifications as fine and subtle as those of the coral are
coarse and dull.
But let us keep to our insects. Let us select the most miserable--the
wonderfully little butterfly of the clothes-moth, that dirty white
butterfly which seems the lowest of created beings. Take only his wing.
Nay, far less, only a little dust, the light powder which covers his
wing. You are astounded at seeing that Nature, exhausting the most
ingenious industry in order that this offcast of creation may fly
at his ease, and without fatigue, has scattered over his wing, not
dust, but a multitude of tiny balloons. Or, if you prefer it, so many
parachutes, most convenient instruments for flight, which, when opened,
sustain the little aeronaut without fatigue and for an indefinite
period; which, as they are more or less expanded, enable it to rise or
sink; and when folded up, permit of its remaining quiet. The least of
the butterflies, thus supported, has a faculty of flight as unlimited
as the noblest bird of heaven.
One grows keenly interested in these curious apparatus, which have
anticipated our human inventions. One observes their strange and
surprising modes of action, as one would observe the inhabitants of
another planet, if he were miraculously transported thither. But what
one most yearns to see, what one burns to detect, is some reflection
from _within_, some gleam of the torch which is concealed in their
inner existence, some appearance of thought. Have they a physiognomy?
Can I seize in their strange visage any trace of an intelligence which,
judging by their works, so closely resembles our own? Of the expression
which touches me in the eye of the dog, and of other animals related
to me, shall I detect nothing in the bee, the ant, in those ingenious
beings, those creators, which accomplish so many things the dog cannot
accomplish?
A clever man once said to me: "As a boy I was very partial to insects;
I searched about for caterpillars, and made a collection of them. I
was especially curious to look in their faces, but never succeeded.
All that I could distinguish was confused, dull, melancholy. This
discouraged me. I left off making collections."
I was but a child in this new study; that is, I was fresh to it, and
curious. My special anxiety was to interrogate the countenance of the
dumb little world, and to surprise there, in default of voice, the
silent thought. Thought? At least, the dream, the obscure and floating
instinct.
I addressed myself to the ant; an humble being in form and colour,
but endowed with a prodigious amount of social instinct and of the
educational capacity; not to speak of its quickness of resource, of
the promptitude with which it confronts perils, and chances, and
embarrassments.
I take then an ant of the commonest species--a neutral ant--one of the
workers who are relieved from the wants of love, and in whom therefore
the sex, diminished to a minimum for the advantage of labour, develops
so much more powerfully its extraordinary instinct; who alone perform
all the diverse trades of the little community, and are purveyors,
nurses, architects, and inventors.
I selected a very fine, serene, and luminous day--not luminous with the
glare of summer, but the calm radiance of autumn (1st September 1856).
I was alone, in a state of perfect silence and repose, and in that
complete forgetfulness of the world which is so rarely obtained. After
the manifold agitations of the past and present, my heart for a moment
was at peace.
Never was I more ready to hear the mute voices which do not address
themselves to the ear, to penetrate in a calm and benevolent spirit
the mystery of the little world which on every side surrounds us,
and yet has hitherto remained out of our reach and apart from our
communications.
Alone with my ant, armed with a tolerably good lens, with a magnifying
power of twelve, I placed it delicately on a large sheet of fine white
paper which covered nearly the whole table.
With the microscope I could have seen but a part and not the whole. A
very considerable enlargement would also have exaggerated the merely
secondary details--such as the scanty hairs with which the ant is
provided. Finally, its mobility would not have suffered me to keep it
in the focus of the microscope; but the lens, as easily shifted as
itself, followed it in all its motions.
Not, however, without some difficulty. It was lively, alert,
disquieted, and impatient to quit the table. I was looking at it in
the middle of the sheet, when it was already nearly at the edge. I was
obliged to _etherize_ it a little, so as to stupefy it, and render it
less uneasy.
It appeared very clean, and highly varnished. Though a neuter, and
not a female, its belly was rather large, and was joined to the chest
by two small swellings. From the chest the head, which was strong and
nearly round, detached itself cleanly and distinctly.
This head, seen as it were _en masse_, resembled a bird's. But instead
of a beak it had a circular prolongation, in which, on attentive
examination, I detected the reunion of two tiny crescents joined at
the point. These were its teeth, or mandibles, which do not operate
like ours, from above to below, but horizontally and sideways. The
insect employs its mandibles for the most widely different purposes;
they are not only its weapons and instruments of mastication, but the
tools it uses for every art, supplying the place of hands in masonry,
plastering, carving, and in lifting and transplanting burdens which are
frequently of enormous weight.
It was well for it that its body was wrapped in a complete coat of
mail. The ether affected it but slightly, and only stupefied it. After
a moment's immobility it partly recovered, and made a few movements
like those of an intoxicated person, or as if it were affected with a
fit of vertigo. It seemed to say, "Where am I?" and endeavoured to make
out the ground where it was walking, the great sheet of white paper. It
attempted a few tottering steps, tumbling first on one side and then on
the other. It carried before it a couple of instruments which at first
I took to be feet, but which I found, on more careful inspection, were
wholly different.
They sprang from a point near either eye, and, like the eyes, were
evidently instruments of observation. These antennæ, as they are
called, long, delicate, yet robust, and vibrating at the slightest
touch, are fleshy, articulated in twenty pieces, and disposed one
in another. They form an instrument admirably adapted for feeling
and groping. But it is useful in many other ways: by means of it the
ants transmit in a second very complicated advices, as, for instance,
when they change their course and retire, or suddenly take a wholly
different road; evidently they have a language like that of the
telegraph. This supposed marvellous organ of touch is more probably
a species of hearing apparatus, and so mobile that it quivers at the
slightest vibrations of the air, and feels every wave of sound.
* * * * *
The perfect accord of every movement of the delicate and subtle tactile
and telegraphic apparatus, the strong head, in fine, which seemingly
_thinks_, completed the illusion. Its attitudes, its gropings, its
efforts to obtain a knowledge of the situation, showed precisely
what we should have been under similar circumstances. Shakespeare's
Queen Mab, in her nut-shell chariot, occurred to my mind. And more,
the chronicles of the Hubers; those impressive and almost terrifying
narratives which would lead us to believe that the ants are far
advanced in a knowledge of good and evil.
* * * * *
It turned its back upon me obstinately, as if it dreaded to see its
persecutor. It looked upon me as a horrible giant, and, despite its
semi-intoxicated condition, made constant and energetic efforts to
escape me, and place itself in security.
I brought it back very softly and cautiously. But I could not make
it show me its face. Its antipathy and its terror, undoubtedly, were
too powerful. I therefore decided to take hold of it with a small
pair of pincers, and to keep it on its back, using as little pressure
as possible. The pressure, though light, acting on the small lateral
orifices (or stigmata) through which it breathes, was infinitely
painful, to judge from the resistance it offered. With its minute claws
and mandibles it held the pincers so firmly that I could hear the air
vibrate with every motion. I hastily profited by the painful position
in which I had placed my ant; I looked it in the face.
That which is most disconcerting, and gives it a peculiar appearance,
are the teeth or mandibles placed outside the mouth, and springing, one
on the right side, the other on the left, in a horizontal direction, so
as to meet together: ours are vertical. These projecting teeth seem to
offer battle, though, as I have said, they are also used for pacific
purposes, and _serve as hands_.
Behind the teeth may be seen several little threads or palpi at the
entrance of the mouth; which are, in reality, the _little hands of the
mouth_,--feeling, and handling, and turning over whatever is brought
there.
In front emerge the antennæ, the _other_ hands; but these are set
externally, are mobile and susceptible to an excess,--in a word,
_electric hands_.
Behind the head, at the chest, commence the paws or feet, two in front
of great dexterity, and rightly named by Kirby the arms.
An apparatus of such complexity, placed in the fore part of the body,
cannot fail to obscure and overcloud its physiognomy. What would be the
case with our own, if from our eyes and mouth six hands started, to say
nothing of those which proceed from the shoulders, and of four others
placed lower down?
The whole is intended for action and defence. The face which the insect
shows is its resisting skull, its bony case, which cannot move. This
frames, encloses, and fixes the eyes, which are also immovable; but,
being exterior and multiple, motion is not necessary: those of the ant
are divided into fifty facets, which reveal everything to it either
in front or rear. Thus, then, its sight is admirable, but it cannot
_look_. No external muscle sets the mask in motion. And, therefore, it
has no physiognomy.
But, in compensation, its pantomime was extremely expressive,--I may
even say, very pathetic. On discovering that it was so feeble and
incapable of walking, it did exactly what prudent and sagacious man
would have done, and attempted to recover its energies by the very
means which we should have employed. It commenced a methodical friction
of its entire body, from above to below. Seated like a little monkey,
it skilfully made use of its arms or anterior feet in such a manner as
to rub its back and side. Occasionally it returned to its head, took
it between its two hands, as if it would fain have shaken it clear of
the fatal intoxication which rendered it so little able to provide
for its own safety. One would have said it was questioning itself,
collecting its thoughts, and saying, as we do after a bad dream, "Is it
true, or is it false?--Poor head!--Alas! what ails thee, then?"
At that moment I felt that we were living in two worlds, and that there
were no means of understanding each other. How could I reassure it? My
language, that of the voice; its, that of the antennæ. Not one of my
words could obtain access to the electric telegraph which served as its
organ of hearing.
The continuous bony case which envelops its body isolates the insect
from us, and conceals us from the insect. It has a heart which beats
like ours; but we cannot see its pulsations beneath its thick coat of
mail. It does not even command that wordless language which touches us
in so many dumb beings. It is wholly wrapped up in mystery and silence.
It breathes, or rather imbibes air, through the sides, not through the
face or head. No palpitation or respiratory movement can be detected in
it. Therefore, how should it speak, how complain? Of all our languages
it has not one; it makes a sound, but does not possess a voice.
Is the fixed and immovable mask, thus condemned to perpetual silence,
that of a monster or a spectre? No. After watching its movements,
its numerous actions indicative of reflection, its arts so much more
advanced than those of the larger animals, we are not unwilling to
believe that in this head exists a personality. And from the highest to
the lowest in the scale of life, we recognize the identity of the soul.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: III.--THE INSECT, THE AGENT OF NATURE.]