THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE NEST; THE COMMUNITY
November arrives, however, bringing cold weather; the time has come to
build the stout winter tabernacle. High up in the pine the tip of a
bough is chosen, with suitably close-packed and convergent leaves. The
spinners surround it with a spreading network, which bends the adjacent
leaves a little nearer and ends by incorporating them into the fabric.
In this way they obtain an enclosure half silk, half leaves, capable of
withstanding the inclemencies of the weather.
Early in December the work has increased to the size of a man’s two
fists or more. In its ultimate perfection, it attains a volume of
nearly half a gallon by the end of winter.
It is roughly egg-shaped, tapering to a certain length below and
extended into a sheath which envelops the supporting branch. The origin
of this silky extension is as follows: every evening between seven and
nine o’clock, weather permitting, the caterpillars leave the nest and
go down the bare part of the bough which forms the pole of the tent.
The road is broad, for this axis is sometimes as wide as the neck of a
claret-bottle. The descent is accomplished without any attempt at order
and always slowly, so much so that the first caterpillars to come out
have not yet dispersed before they are caught up by the others. The
branch is thus covered by a continuous bark of caterpillars, made up of
the whole community, which gradually divides into squads and disperses
to this side and that on the nearest branches to crop their leaves. Now
not one of the caterpillars moves a step without working his spinneret.
Therefore the broad downward path, which on the way back will be the
ascending path, is covered, as the result of constant traffic, with a
multitude of threads forming an unbroken sheath.
It is obvious that this sheath, in which each caterpillar, passing
backwards and forwards on his nocturnal rambles, leaves a double
thread, is not an indicator laid down with the sole object of
simplifying the journey back to the nest: a mere ribbon would be enough
for that. Its use might well be to strengthen the edifice, to give it
deeper foundations and to join it by a multitude of cables to the
steady branch.
The whole thing thus consists, above, of the home distended into an
ovoid and, below, of the stalk, the sheath surrounding the support and
adding its resistance to that of the numerous other fastenings.
Each nest that has not yet had its shape altered by the prolonged
residence of the caterpillars shows in the centre a bulky, milk-white
shell, with around it a wrapper of diaphanous gauze. The central mass,
formed of thickly-woven threads, has for a wall a thick quilt into
which are absorbed, as supports, numbers of leaves, green and intact.
The thickness of this wall may be anything up to three-quarters of an
inch.
At the top of the dome are round openings, varying greatly in number
and distribution, as wide across as an ordinary lead-pencil. These are
the doors of the house, through which the caterpillars go in and out.
All around the shell are projecting leaves, which the insects’ teeth
have respected. From the tip of each leaf there radiate, in graceful,
undulating curves, threads which, loosely interlaced, form a light
tent, a spacious verandah of careful workmanship, especially in the
upper part. Here we find a broad terrace on which, in the daytime, the
caterpillars come and doze in the sun, heaped one upon the other, with
rounded backs. The network stretching overhead does duty as an awning:
it moderates the heat of the sun’s rays; it also saves the sleepers
from a fall when the bough rocks in the wind.
Let us take our scissors and rip open the nest from end to end
longitudinally. A wide window opens and allows us to see the
arrangement of the inside. The first thing to strike us is that the
leaves contained in the enclosure are intact and quite sound. The young
caterpillars in their temporary establishments gnaw the leaves within
the silken wrapper to death; they thus have their larder stocked for a
few days without having to quit their shelter in bad weather, a
condition made necessary by their weakness. When they grow stronger and
start working on their winter home, they are very careful not to touch
the leaves. Why these new scruples?
The reason is evident. If bruised, those leaves, the framework of the
house, would very soon wither and then be blown off with the first
breath of wind. The silken purse, torn from its base, would collapse.
On the other hand, if the leaves are respected, they remain vigorous
and furnish a stout support against the assaults of winter. A solid
fastening is superfluous for the summer tent, which lasts but a day; it
is indispensable to the permanent shelter which will have to bear the
burden of heavy snows and the buffeting of icy winds. Fully alive to
these perils, the spinner of the pine-tree considers himself bound,
however importunate his hunger, not to saw through the rafters of his
house.
Inside the nest, therefore, opened by my scissors I see a thick arcade
of green leaves, more or less closely wrapped in a silky sheath whence
dangle shreds of cast skin and strings of dried droppings. In short,
this interior is an extremely unpleasant place, a rag-shop and a
sewage-farm in one, and corresponds in no way with the imposing
exterior. All around is a solid wall of quilting and of closely-woven
leaves. There are no chambers, no compartments marked off by
partition-walls. It is a single room, turned into a labyrinth by the
colonnade of green leaves placed in rows one above the other throughout
the oval hall. Here the caterpillars stay when resting, gathered on the
columns, heaped in confused masses.
When we remove the hopeless tangle at the top, we see the light
filtering in at certain points of the roof. These luminous points
correspond with the openings that communicate with the outer air. The
network that forms a wrapper to the nest has no special exits. To pass
through it in either direction, the caterpillars have only to push the
sparse threads aside slightly. The inner wall, a compact rampart, has
its doors; the flimsy outer veil has none.
It is in the morning, at about ten o’clock, that the caterpillars leave
their night-apartment and come to take the sun on their terrace, under
the awning which the points of the leaves hold up at a distance. They
spend the whole day there dozing. Motionless, heaped together, they
steep themselves deliciously in warmth and from time to time betray
their bliss by nodding and wagging their heads. At six or seven
o’clock, when it grows dark, the sleepers awake, bestir themselves,
separate and go their several ways over the surface of the nest.
We now behold an indeed delightful spectacle. Bright-red stripes
meander in every direction over the white sheet of silk. One goes up,
another comes down, a third moves aslant; others form a short
procession. And, as they solemnly walk about in a splendid disorder,
each glues to the ground which it covers the thread that constantly
hangs from its lip.
Thus is the thickness of the shelter increased by a fine layer added
immediately above the previous structure; thus is the dwelling
strengthened by fresh supports. The adjoining green leaves are taken
into the network and absorbed in the building. If the tiniest bit of
them remains free, curves radiate from that point, increasing the size
of the veil and fastening it at a greater distance. Every evening,
therefore, for an hour or two, great animation reigns on the surface of
the nest, if the weather permits; and the work of consolidating and
thickening the structure is carried on with indefatigable zeal.
Do they foresee the future, these wary ones who take such precautions
against the rigours of winter? Obviously not. Their few months’
experience—if indeed experience can be mentioned in connection with a
caterpillar—tells them of savoury bellyfuls of green stuff, of gentle
slumbers in the sun on the terrace of the nest; but nothing hitherto
has made them acquainted with cold, steady rain, with frost, snow and
furious blasts of wind. And these creatures, knowing naught of winter’s
woes, take the same precautions as if they were thoroughly aware of all
that the inclement season holds in store for them. They work away at
their house with an ardour that seems to say:
“Oh, how nice and warm we shall be in our beds here, nestling one
against the other, when the pine-tree swings aloft its frosted
candelabra! Let us work with a will! Laboremus!”
Yes, caterpillars, my friends, let us work with a will, great and
small, men and grubs alike, so that we may fall asleep peacefully; you
with the torpor that makes way for your transformation into Moths, we
with that last sleep which breaks off life only to renew it. Laboremus!
Anxious to watch my caterpillars’ habits in detail, without having to
sally forth by lantern-light, often in bad weather, to see what happens
in the pine-trees at the end of the enclosure, I have installed
half-a-dozen nests in a greenhouse, a modest, glazed shelter which,
though hardly any warmer than the air outside, at least affords
protection from the wind and rain. Fixed in the sand, at a height of
about eighteen inches, by the base of the bough that serves as both an
axis and a framework, each nest receives for rations a bundle of little
pine-branches, which are renewed as soon as they are consumed. I take
my lantern every evening and pay my boarders a visit. This is the way
in which most of my facts are obtained.
After the day’s work comes the evening meal. The caterpillars descend
from the nest, adding a few more threads to the silvery sheath of the
support, and reach the posy of fresh green stuff which is lying quite
near. It is a magnificent sight to see the red-coated band lined up in
twos and threes on each needle and in ranks so closely formed that the
green sprigs of the bunch bend under the load.
The diners, all motionless, all poking their heads forward, nibble in
silence, placidly. Their broad black foreheads gleam in the rays of the
lantern. A shower of granules drops on the sand below. These are the
residues of easy-going stomachs, only too ready to digest their food.
By to-morrow morning the soil will have disappeared under a greenish
layer of this intestinal hail. Yes, indeed, it is a sight to see, one
far more stimulating than that of the Silk-worms’ mess-room. Young and
old, we are all so much interested in it that our evenings almost
invariably end in a visit to the greenhouse caterpillars.
The meal is prolonged far into the night. Satisfied at last, some
sooner, some later, they go back to the nest, where for a little
longer, feeling their silk-glands filled, they continue spinning on the
surface. These hard workers would scruple to cross the white carpet
without contributing a few threads. It is getting on for one or even
two o’clock in the morning when the last of the band goes indoors.
My duty as a foster-father is daily to renew the bunch of sprigs, which
are shorn to the last leaf; on the other hand, my duty as an historian
is to enquire to what extent the diet can be varied. The district
supplies me with Processionaries on the Scotch pine, the maritime pine
and the Aleppo pine indifferently, but never on the other Coniferæ. Yet
one would think that any resin-scented leaf ought to suit. So says
chemical analysis.
We must mistrust the chemist’s retort when it pokes its nose into the
kitchen. It may succeed in making butter out of tallow-candles and
brandy out of potatoes; but, when it tells us that the products are
identical, we shall do well to refuse these abominations. Science,
astonishingly rich as it is in poison, will never provide us with
anything fit to eat, because, though the raw substance falls to a large
extent within its domain, that same substance escapes its methods the
moment that it is wanted organized, divided and subdivided indefinitely
by the process of life, as needed by the stomach, whose requirements
are not to be met by measured doses of our reagents. The raw material
of cell and fibre may perhaps be artificially obtained, some day; cell
and fibre themselves, never. There’s the rub with your chemical
feeding.
The caterpillars loudly proclaim the insurmountable difficulty of the
problem. Relying on my chemical data, I offer them the different
substitutes for the pine growing in my enclosure: the spruce, the yew,
the thuja, the juniper, the cypress. What! Am I asking them, Pine
Caterpillars, to bite into that? They will take good care not to,
despite the tempting resinous smell! They would die of hunger rather
than touch it! One conifer and one only is excepted: the cedar. My
charges browse upon its leaves with no appreciable repugnance. Why the
cedar and not the others? I do not know. The caterpillar’s stomach,
fastidious as our own, has its secrets.
Let us pass to other tests. I have just slit open longitudinally a nest
whose internal structure I want to explore. Owing to the natural
shrinkage of the split swan’s-down, the cleft reaches two fingers’
breadth in the centre and tapers at the top and bottom. What will the
spinners do in the presence of such a disaster? The operation is
performed by day, while the caterpillars are slumbering in heaps upon
the dome. As the living-room is deserted at this time, I can cut boldly
with the scissors without risk of damaging any part of the population.
My ravages do not wake the sleepers: all day long not one appears upon
the breach. This indifference looks as though it were due to the fact
that the danger is not yet known. Things will be different to-night,
when the busy work begins again. However dull they may be, the
caterpillars will certainly notice that huge window which freely admits
the deadly draughts of winter; and, possessing any amount of padding,
they will crowd round the dangerous gap and stop it up in a trice. Thus
do we argue, forgetting the animal’s intellectual darkness.
What really happens is that, when night falls, the indifference of the
caterpillars remains as great as ever. The breach in the tent provokes
not a sign of excitement. They move to and fro on the surface of the
nest; they work, they spin as usual. There is no change, absolutely
none, in their behaviour. When the road covered chances to bring some
of them to the brink of the ravine, we see no alacrity on their part,
no sign of anxiety, no attempt to close up the two edges of the slit.
They simply strive to accomplish the difficult crossing and to continue
their stroll as though they were walking on a perfect web. And they
manage it somehow or other, by fixing the thread as far as the length
of their body permits.
Having once crossed the gulf, they pursue their way imperturbably,
without stopping any more at the breach. Others come upon the scene
and, using the threads already laid as foot-bridges, pass over the rent
and walk on, leaving their own thread as they go. Thus the first
night’s work results in the laying over the cleft of a filmy gauze,
hardly perceptible, but just sufficient for the traffic of the colony.
The same thing is repeated on the nights that follow; and the crevice
ends by being closed with a scanty sort of Spider’s web. And that is
all.
There is no improvement by the end of the winter. The window made by my
scissors is still wide open, though thinly veiled; its black spindle
shape shows from the top of the nest to the bottom. There is no darn in
the split texture, no piece of swan’s-down let in between the two edges
to restore the roof to its original state. If the accident had happened
in the open air and not under glass, the foolish spinners would
probably have died of cold in their cracked house.
Twice renewed with the same results, this test proves that the Pine
Caterpillars are not alive to the danger of their split dwelling.
Expert spinners though they be, they seem as unconscious of the ruin of
their work as the spools in a factory are of a broken thread. They
could easily make good the damage by stopping up the breach with the
silk that is lavished elsewhere without urgent need; they could weave
upon it a material as thick and solid as the rest of the walls. But no,
they placidly continue their habitual task; they spin as they spun
yesterday and as they will spin to-morrow, strengthening the parts that
are already strong, thickening what is already thick enough; and not
one thinks of stopping the disastrous gap. To let a piece into that
hole would mean weaving the tent all over again from the beginning; and
no insect, however industrious, goes back to what it has already done.
I have often called attention to this feature in animal psychology;
notably I have described the ineptitude of the caterpillar of the Great
Peacock Moth. [8] When the experimenter lops the top off the
complicated eel-trap which forms the pointed end of the cocoon, this
caterpillar spends the silk remaining to him in work of secondary
importance, instead of making good the series of cones, each fitting
into the other, which are so essential to the hermit’s protection. He
continues his normal task imperturbably, as though nothing out of the
way had taken place. Even so does the spinner in the pine-tree act with
his burst tent.
Your foster-parent must perpetrate yet another piece of mischief, O my
Processionary; but this time it shall be to your advantage! It does not
take me long to perceive that the nests intended to last through the
winter often contain a population much greater than that of the
temporary shelters woven by the very young caterpillars. I also notice
that, when they have attained their ultimate dimensions, these nests
differ very considerably in size. The largest of them are equal to five
or six of the smallest. What is the cause of these variations?
Certainly, if all the eggs turned out well, the scaly cylinder
containing the laying of a single mother would be enough to fill a
splendid purse: there are three hundred enamelled beads here for
hatching. But in families which swarm unduly an enormous waste always
takes places and restores the balance of things; if the called are
legion, the chosen are a well thinned-out troop, as is proved by the
Cicada, the Praying Mantis [9] and the Cricket.
The Pine Processionary, another crucible of organic matter of which
various devourers take advantage, is also reduced in numbers
immediately after the hatching. The delicate mouthful has shrunk to a
few dozens of survivors around the light globular network in which the
family passes the sunny autumn days. Soon they will have to be thinking
of the stoutly-built winter tent. At such a time, it would be a boon if
they could be many, for from union springs strength.
I suspect an easy method of fusion among a few families. To serve them
as a guide in their peregrinations about the tree, the caterpillars
have their silk ribbon, which they follow on their return, after
describing a bend. They may also miss it and strike another, one
differing in no respect from their own. This new ribbon marks the way
to some nest situated in the neighbourhood. The strayed caterpillars,
failing to distinguish it from their own ribbon, follow it
conscientiously and in this manner end by reaching a strange dwelling.
Suppose them to be peacefully received: what will happen?
Once fused, the several groups assembled by the accident of the path
will form a powerful city, fitted to produce great works; the concerted
weaklings will give rise to a strong, united body. This would explain
the thickly-populated, bulky nests situated so near to others that have
remained puny. The former would be the work of a syndicate
incorporating the interests of spinners collected from different parts;
the latter would belong to families left in isolation by the luck of
the road.
It remains to be seen whether the chance-comers, guided by a strange
ribbon, meet with a good reception in the new abode. The experiment is
easily made upon the nests in the greenhouse. In the evening, at the
hours devoted to grazing, I remove with a pruning-shears the different
little branches covered with the population of one nest and lay them on
the provisions of the neighbouring nest, which provisions are also
overrun with caterpillars. Or I can make shorter work of it by taking
the whole bunch, well covered with the troop, of the first pouch and
planting it right beside the bunch of the second, so that the leaves of
the two mingle a little at the edges.
There is not the least quarrelling between the real proprietors and the
new arrivals. Both go on peacefully browsing, as though nothing had
happened. And all without hesitation, when bed-time comes, make for the
nest, like brothers who have always lived together; all do some
spinning before retiring to rest, thicken the blanket a little and are
then swallowed up in the dormitory. By repeating the same operation
next day and, if necessary, the day after, in order to collect the
laggards, I succeed without the slightest difficulty in wholly
depopulating the first nest and transferring all its caterpillars to
the second.
I venture to do something better still. The same method of
transportation allows me to quadruple the output of a spinning-mill by
adding to it the workers of three similar establishments. And, if I
limit myself to this increase, the reason is not that any confusion
manifests itself in this shifting of quarters, but that I see no bounds
to my experiment, so cheerfully do the caterpillars accept any addition
to their number. The more spinners, the more spinning: a very judicious
rule of conduct.
Let us add that the caterpillars which have been transported cherish no
regrets for their old house. They are quite at home with the others and
make no attempt to regain the nest whence they were banished by my
artifices. It is not the distance that discourages them, for the empty
dwelling is only half a yard away at most. If, for the purpose of my
studies, I wish to restock the deserted nest, I am obliged once more to
resort to transportation, which invariably proves successful.
Later, in February, when an occasional fine day allows of long
processions on the walls and the sand-covered shelf of the greenhouse,
I am able to watch the fusing of two groups without personally
intervening. All that I have to do is patiently to follow the
evolutions of a file on the march. I see it sometimes, after leaving
one nest, enter a different one, guided by some fortuitous change of
route. Thenceforward the strangers form part of the community on the
same footing as the others. In a like fashion, when the caterpillars
walk abroad upon the tree at night, the scanty groups of the outset
must increase and gather the number of spinners which an extensive
building requires.
Everything for everybody. So says the Pine Processionary, nibbling his
leaves without quarrelling in the least over his neighbours’ mouthfuls,
or else entering—and being always peacefully received—another’s home
precisely as he would his own. Whether a member of the tribe or a
stranger, he finds room in the refectory and room in the dormitory. The
others’ nest is his nest. The others’ grazing-ground is his
grazing-ground, in which he is entitled to his fair share, one neither
greater nor smaller than the share of his habitual or casual
companions.
Each for all and all for each. So says the Processionary, who every
evening spends his little capital of silk on enlarging a shelter that
is often new to him. What would he do with his puny skein, if alone?
Hardly anything. But there are hundreds and hundreds of them in the
spinning-mill; and the result of their infinitesimal contributions,
woven into a common stuff, is a thick blanket capable of resisting the
winter. In working for himself, each works for the others; and these on
their side work as zealously for each. O lucky animals that know
nothing of property, the mother of strife! O enviable cenobites, who
practise the strictest communism!
These habits of the caterpillars invite a few reflections. Generous
minds, richer in illusions than in logic, set communism before us as
the sovran cure for human ills. Is it practicable among mankind? At all
times there have been, there still are and there always will be,
fortunately, associations in which it is possible to forget in common
some small part of the hardships of life; but is it possible to
generalize?
The caterpillars of the pine can give us much valuable information in
this respect. Let us have no false shame: our material needs are shared
by the animals; they struggle as we do to take part in the general
banquet of the living; and the manner in which they solve the problem
of existence is not to be despised. Let us then ask ourselves what are
the reasons that cause cenobitism to flourish among the
Processionaries.
One answer suggests itself inevitably, to begin with: the food problem,
that terrible disturber of the world’s tranquillity, is here
non-existent. Peace reigns as soon as the stomach is certain of being
filled without a struggle. A pine-needle or even less suffices for the
caterpillar’s meal; and that needle is always there, waiting to be
eaten, is there in inexhaustible numbers, almost on the threshold of
the home. When dinner-time arrives, we caterpillars go out, we take the
air, we walk a little in procession; then, without laborious seeking,
without jealous rivalries, we seat ourselves at the banquet. The table
is plentifully spread and will never be bare, so large and generous is
the pine; all that we need do is, from one evening to the next, to move
our dining-room a little farther on. Consequently, there are no present
and no future cares on the subject of provisions: the caterpillar finds
food to eat almost as easily as he finds air to breathe.
The atmosphere feeds all creatures on air with a bounty which it is not
necessary to crave. All unknown to itself, without the agency of any
effort or labour, the animal receives its share of the most vital of
elements. The niggardly earth, on the contrary, surrenders its gifts
only when laboriously forced. Not fruitful enough to satisfy every
need, it leaves the division of the food to the fierce eagerness of
competition.
The mouthful to be procured engenders war between consumers. Look at
two Ground-beetles coming at the same time upon a bit of Earth-worm.
Which of the two shall have the morsel? The matter shall be decided by
battle, desperate, ferocious battle. With these famished ones, who eat
at long intervals and do not always eat their fill, communal life is
out of the question.
The Pine Caterpillar is free from these woes. He finds the earth as
generous as the atmosphere; he finds eating as easy as breathing. Other
instances of perfect communism might be named. All occur among species
living on a vegetable diet, provided however that victuals are
plentiful and obtainable without a hard search. An animal diet, on the
contrary, a prey, always more or less difficult to secure, banishes
cenobitism. Where the portion is too small for one, what excuse would
there be for guests?
The Pine Processionary knows nothing of privation. He knows as little
of family ties, another source of unrelenting competition. To make
ourselves a place in the sun is but a half of the struggle imposed upon
us by life: we must also, as far as possible, prepare a place for our
successors; and, as the preservation of the species is of greater
importance than that of the individual, the struggle for the future is
even fiercer than the struggle for the present. Every mother regards
the welfare of her offspring as her primary law. Perish all else,
provided that the brood flourish! Every one for himself is her maxim,
imposed by the rigours of the general conflict; every one for himself
is her rule, the safeguard of the future.
With maternity and its imperious duties, communism ceases to be
practicable. At first sight, certain Hymenoptera [10] seem to declare
the contrary. We find, for instance, the Mason-bees of the Sheds [11]
nesting in myriads on the same tiles and building a monumental edifice
at which all the mothers work. Is this really a community? Not at all.
It is a city in which the inhabitants have neighbours, not
collaborators. Each mother kneads her pots of honey; each amasses a
dowry for her offspring and nothing but a dowry for her offspring; each
wears herself out for her family and only for her family. Oh, it would
be a serious business if some one merely came and alighted on the brim
of a cell that did not belong to her; the mistress of the house would
give her to understand, by means of a sound drubbing, that manners such
as those are not to be endured! She would have to skedaddle very
quickly, unless she wanted a fight. The rights of property are sacred
here.
Even the much more social Hive-bee is no exception to the rule of
maternal egoism. To each hive one mother. If there be two, civil war
breaks out and one of them perishes by the other’s dagger or else quits
the country, followed by a part of the swarm. Although virtually fit to
lay eggs, the other Bees, to the number of some twenty thousand,
renounce maternity and vow themselves to celibacy in order to bring up
the prodigious family of the one and only mother. Here, communism
reigns, under certain aspects; but, for the immense majority,
motherhood is forthwith abolished.
Even so with the Wasps, the Ants, the Termites [12] and the various
social insects. Life in common costs them dear. Thousands and thousands
remain incomplete and become the humble auxiliaries of a few who are
sexually endowed. But, whenever maternity is the general portion,
individualism reappears, as among the Mason-bees, notwithstanding their
show of communism.
The Pine Caterpillars are exempt from the duty of preserving the race.
They have no sex, or rather are obscurely preparing one, as undecided
and rudimentary as all that is not yet but must one day be. With the
blossoming of maternity, that flower of adult age, individual property
will not fail to appear, attended by its rivalries. The insect now so
peaceable will, like the others, have its displays of selfish
intolerance. The mothers will isolate themselves, jealous of the double
pine-needle in which the cylinder of eggs is to be fixed; the males,
fluttering their wings, will challenge one another for the possession
of the coveted bride. It is not a serious struggle among these
easy-going ones, but still it presents a faint picture of those mortal
affrays which the mating so often produces. Love rules the world by
battle; it too is a hotbed of competition.
The caterpillar, being almost sexless, is indifferent to amorous
instincts. This is the first condition for living pacifically in
common. But it is not enough. The perfect concord of the community
demands among all its members an equal division of strength and talent,
of taste and capacity for work. This condition, which perhaps is the
most important of all, is fulfilled preeminently. If there were
hundreds, if there were thousands of them in the same nest, there would
be no difference between any of them.
They are all the same size and equally strong; all wear the same dress;
all possess the same gift for spinning; and all with equal zeal expend
the contents of their silk-glands for the general welfare. No one
idles, no one lounges along when there is work to be done. With no
other stimulus than the satisfaction of doing their duty, every
evening, when the weather is favourable, they all spin with equal
industry and drain to the last drop their reservoirs of silk, which
have become distended during the day. In their tribe there is no
question of skilled or unskilled, of strong or weak, of abstemious or
gluttonous; there are neither hard-workers nor idlers, neither savers
nor spendthrifts. What one does the others do, with a like zeal, no
more and no less well. It is a splendid world of equality truly, but,
alas, a world of caterpillars!
If it suited us to go to school to the Pine Processionary, we should
soon see the inanity of our levelling and communistic theories.
Equality is a magnificent political catchword, but little more. Where
is it, this equality of ours? In our social groups, could we find as
many as two persons exactly equal in strength, health, intelligence,
capacity for work, foresight and all the other gifts which are the
great factors of prosperity? Where should we find anything analogous to
the exact parity prevailing among caterpillars? Nowhere. Inequality is
our law. And a good thing, too.
A sound which is invariably the same, however often multiplied, does
not constitute a harmony. We need dissimilarities, sounds loud and
soft, deep and shrill; we need even discords which, by their harshness,
throw into relief the sweetness of the chords. In the same way, human
societies are harmonious only with the aid of contraries. If the dreams
of our levellers could be realized, we should sink to the monotony of
the caterpillar societies; art, science, progress and the lofty flights
of the imagination would slumber indefinitely in the dead calm of
mediocrity.
Besides, if this general levelling were effected, we should still be
very far from communism. To achieve that, we should have to do away
with the family, as the caterpillars and Plato teach us; we should need
abundance of food obtained without any effort. So long as a mouthful of
bread is difficult to acquire, demanding an industry and labour of
which we are not all equally capable, so long as the family remains the
sacred reason for our foresight, so long will the generous theory of
all for each and each for all be absolutely impracticable.
And then should we gain by abolishing the struggle for the daily bread
of ourselves and those dependent on us? It is very doubtful. We should
be getting rid of this world’s two great joys, work and the family, the
only joys that give any value to life; we should be stifling exactly
that which makes our greatness. And the result of this bestial
sacrilege would be a community of human caterpillars. Thus does the
Pine Processionary teach us by his example.