To rear a caterpillar-eater on a skewerful of Spiders is a very innocent
thing, unlikely to compromise the security of the State; it is also a
very childish thing, as I hasten to confess, and worthy of the schoolboy
who, in the mysteries of his desk, seeks as best he may some diversion
from the fascinations of his exercise in composition. And I should not
have undertaken these investigations, still less should I have spoken
them, not without some satisfaction, if I had not discerned, in
the results obtained in my refectory, a certain philosophic import,
involving, so it seemed to me, the evolutionary theory.
It is assuredly a majestic enterprise, commensurate with man's immense
ambitions, to seek to pour the universe into the mould of a formula
and submit every reality to the standard of reason. The geometrician
proceeds in this manner: he defines the cone, an ideal conception; then
he intersects it by a plane. The conic section is submitted to algebra,
an obstetrical appliance which brings forth the equation; and behold,
entreated now in one direction, now in another, the womb of the formula
gives birth to the ellipse, the hyperbola, the parabola, their foci,
their radius vectors, their tangents, their normals, their conjugate
axes, their asymptotes and the rest. It is magnificent, so much so that
you are overcome by enthusiasm, even when you are twenty years old, an
age hardly adapted to the austerities of mathematics. It is superb. You
feel as if you were witnessing the creation of a world.
As a matter of fact, you are merely observing the same idea from
different points of view, which are illumined by the successive phases
of the transformed formula. All that algebra unfolds for our benefit was
contained in the definition of the cone, but it was contained as a
germ, under latent forms which the magic of the calculus converts into
explicit forms. The gross value which our mind confided to the equation
it returns to us, without loss or gain, in coins stamped with every sort
of effigy. And here precisely is that which constitutes the inflexible
rigour of the calculus, the luminous certainty before which every
cultivated mind is forced to bow. Algebra is the oracle of the absolute
truth, because it reveals nothing but what the mind had hidden in
it under an amalgam of symbols. We put 2 and 2 into the machine; the
rollers work and show us 4. That is all.
But to this calculus, all-powerful so long as it does not leave the
domain of the ideal, let us submit a very modest reality: the fall of a
grain of sand, the pendular movement of a hanging body. The machine no
longer works, or does so only by suppressing almost everything that is
real. It must have an ideal material point, an ideal rigid thread, an
ideal point of suspension; and then the pendular movement is translated
by a formula. But the problem defies all the artifices of analysis if
the oscillating body is a real body, endowed with volume and friction;
if the suspensory thread is a real thread, endowed with weight and
flexibility; if the point of support is a real point, endowed with
resistance and capable of deflection. So with other problems, however
simple. The exact reality escapes the formula.
Yes, it would be a fine thing to put the world into an equation,
to assume as the first principle a cell filled with albumen and by
transformation after transformation to discover life under its thousand
aspects as the geometrician discovers the ellipse and the other curves
by examining his conic section. Yes, it would be magnificent and enough
to add a cubit to our stature. Alas, how greatly must we abate our
pretensions! The reality is beyond our reach when it is only a matter of
following a grain of dust in its fall; and we would undertake to ascend
the river of life and trace it to its source! The problem is a more
arduous one than that which algebra declines to solve. There are
formidable unknown quantities here, more difficult to decipher than the
resistances, the deflections and the frictions of the pendulum. Let us
eliminate them, that we may more easily propound the theory.
Very well; but then my confidence in this natural history which
repudiates nature and gives ideal conceptions precedence over real
facts is shaken. So, without seeking the opportunity, which is not my
business, I take it when it presents itself; I examine the theory of
evolution from every side; and, as that which I have been assured is the
majestic dome of a monument capable of defying the ages appears to me to
be no more than a bladder, I irreverently dig my pin into it.
Here is the latest dig. Adaptability to a varied diet is an element of
well-being in the animal, a factor of prime importance for the extension
and predominance of its race in the bitter struggle for life. The most
unfortunate species would be that which depended for its existence on a
diet so exclusive that no other could replace it. What would become of
the Swallow if he required, in order to live, one particular Gnat, a
single Gnat, always the same? When once this Gnat had disappeared--and
the life of the Mosquito is not a long one--the bird would die of
starvation. Fortunately for himself and for the happiness of our homes,
the Swallow gulps them all down indiscriminately, together with a host
of other insects that perform aerial ballets. What would become of the
Lark were his gizzard able to digest only one seed, invariably the same?
When the season for this seed was over--and the season is always a short
one--the haunter of the furrows would perish.
Is not man's complaisant stomach, adapted to the largest variety of
nourishment, one of his great zoological privileges? He is thus rendered
independent of climates, seasons and latitudes. And the Dog: how is
it that of all the domestic animals he alone is able to accompany us
everywhere, even on the most arduous expeditions? The Dog again is
omnivorous and therefore a cosmopolitan.
The discovery of a new dish, said Brillat-Savarin, is of greater
importance to humanity than the discovery of a new planet. The aphorism
is nearer to the truth than it appears to be in its humorous form.
Certainly the man who was the first to think of crushing wheat, kneading
flour and cooking the paste between two hot stones was more deserving
than the discoverer of the two-hundredth asteroid. The invention of
the potato is certainly as valuable as that of Neptune, glorious as the
latter was. All that increases our alimentary resources is a discovery
of the first merit. And what is true of man cannot be other than true
of animals. The world belongs to the stomach which is independent of
specialities. This truth is of the kind that has only to be stated to be
proved.
Let us now return to our insects. If I am to believe the evolutionists,
the various game-hunting Wasps are descended from a small number of
types, which are themselves derived, by an incalculable number of
concatenations, from a few amoebae, a few monera and lastly from the
first clot of protoplasm which was casually condensed. Let us not go
back as far as that; let us not plunge into the fogs where illusion and
error too easily find a lurking-place. Let us consider a subject with
exact limits to it; this is the only way to understand one another.
The Sphegidae are descended from a single type, which itself was already
a highly-developed descendant and, like its successors, fed its family
on prey. The close similarity in form, in colouring and, above all, in
habits seem to refer the Tachytes to the same origin. This is ample; let
us be satisfied with it. And now please tell me, what did this prototype
of the Sphegidae hunt? Was its diet varied or uniform? If we cannot
decide, let us examine the two cases.
The diet was varied. I heartily congratulate the first born of the
Sphex-wasps. She enjoyed the most favourable conditions for leaving
a prosperous offspring. Accommodating herself to any kind of prey not
disproportionate to her strength, she avoided the dearth of a given
species of game at this or that time and in this or that place; she
always found the wherewithal to endow her family magnificently,
they being, for that matter, fairly indifferent to the nature of the
victuals, provided that these consisted of fresh insect-flesh, as the
tastes of their cousins many times removed prove to this day. This
matriarch of the Sphex clan bore within herself the best chances of
assuring victory to her offspring in that pitiless fight for existence
which eliminates the weakly and incapable and allows none but the strong
and industrious to survive; she possessed an aptitude of great value
which atavism could not fail to hand down and which her descendants, who
are greatly interested in preserving this magnificent inheritance, must
have permanently adopted and even accentuated from one generation to the
next, from one branch, one offshoot, to another.
Instead of this unscrupulously omnivorous race, levying booty upon every
kind of game, to its very great advantage, what do we see to-day? Each
Sphex is stupidly limited to an unvarying diet; she hunts only one kind
of prey, though her larva accepts them all. One will have nothing but
the Ephippiger and must have a female at that; another will have nothing
but the Cricket. This one hunts the Locust and nothing else; that one
the Mantis and the Empusa. Yet another is addicted to the Grey Worm and
another to the Looper.
Fools! How great was your mistake in allowing the wise eclecticism
of your ancestress, whose relics now repose in the hard mud of some
lacustrian stratum, to become obsolete! How much better would things
be for you and yours! Abundance is assured; painful and often fruitless
searches are avoided; the larder is crammed without being subject to the
accidents of time, place and climate. When Ephippigers run short,
you fall back upon Crickets; when there are no Crickets, you capture
Grasshoppers. But no, my beautiful Sphex-wasps, you were not such fools
as that. If in our days you are each confined to a standing family-dish,
it is because your ancestress of the lacustrian schists never taught you
variety.
Could she have taught you uniformity? Let us suppose that the Sphex of
antiquity, a novice in the gastronomic art, prepared her potted meats
with a single kind of game, no matter what. It was then her descendants
who, subdivided into groups and constituted into so many distinct
species by the slow travail of the centuries, realized that in addition
to the ancestral fare there existed a host of other foods. Tradition
being abandoned, there was nothing to guide their choice. They therefore
tried a bit of everything in the way of insect game, at hap-hazard;
and each time the larva, whose tastes alone had to be consulted, was
satisfied with the food supplied, as it is to-day in the refectory
provisioned by my care.
Every attempt led to the invention of a new dish, an important event,
according to the masters, an inestimable resource for the family, who
were thereby delivered from the menace of death and enabled to thrive
over large areas whence the absence or rarity of a uniform game would
have excluded it. And, after making use of a host of different viands
in order to attain the culinary variety which is to-day adopted by the
whole of the Sphex nation, lo and behold, each species confines itself
to a single sort of game, outside which every specimen is obstinately
refused, not at table, of course, but in the hunting-field! By your
experiments, from age to age, to have discovered variety in diet; to
have practised it, to the great advantage of your race, and to end up
with uniformity, the cause of decadence; to have known the excellent and
to repudiate it for the middling: oh, my Sphex-wasps, it would be stupid
if the theory of evolution were correct!
To avoid insulting you and also from respect for common sense, I prefer
therefore to believe that, if in our days you confine your hunting to
a single kind of game, it is because you have never known any other. I
prefer to believe that your common ancestress, your precursor, whether
her tastes were simple or complex, is a pure chimera, for, if they
were any relationship between you, having tested everything in order to
arrive at the actual food of each species, having eaten everything and
found it grateful to the stomach, you would now, from first to last, be
unprejudiced consumers, omnivorous progressives. I prefer to believe, in
short, that the theory of evolution is powerless to explain your diet.
This is the conclusion drawn from the dining-room installed in my old
sardine-box.