The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with
slants of sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than
a remote possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds
flitted or hopped from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around
flowers within or upon which bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran
nimbly about on the mould; a member of the Universal Knowledge Society
perambulated the gravel path.
The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the
dissemination and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our
philosopher, therefore, did not occupy himself with considering whether
in that miniature world, with its countless varieties of animal and
vegetable being, something might not be found with which he was himself
unacquainted; but, like the honey-freighted bee, rather sought an
opportunity of disburdening himself of his stores of information than
of adding to them. But who was to profit by his communicativeness? The
noisy birds could not hear themselves speak, much less him; he shrewdly
distrusted his ability to command the attention of the busy bees; and
even a member of the Universal Knowledge Society may well be at a loss
for a suitable address to an earwig. At length he determined to accost
a Butterfly who, after sipping the juice of a flower, remained perched
indolently upon it, apparently undecided whither to direct his flight.
“It seems likely to rain,” he said, “have you an umbrella?”
The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer.
“I do not ask,” resumed the Philosopher, “as one who should imply that
the probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a
ratiocinative being, endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed
to direct your attention to the inquiry whether these attributes are,
in fact, rightly predicable of Butterflies.”
Still no answer.
“An impression obtains among our own species,” continued the
Philosopher, “that you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and
providence to a remarkable, I might almost say a culpable degree.
Pardon me if I add that this suspicion is to some extent confirmed by
my finding you destitute of protection against imbriferous inclemency
under atmospheric conditions whose contingent humidity should be
obvious to a being endowed with the most ordinary allotment of
meteorological prevision.”
The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just
what the latter desired.
“I greatly fear,” he continued, “that the omission to which I have
reluctantly adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of
the entire political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It
has even been stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely
credible, that your system of life does not include the accumulation of
adequate resources against the inevitable exigencies of winter.”
“What is winter?” asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an
answer.
The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from
amazement at the Butterfly’s nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding.
Recovering himself immediately, he shouted after the fugitive:
“Frivolous animal!” “It is this levity,” continued he, addressing a
group of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted
by the conversation, “it is this fatal levity that constrains me to
despair wholly of the future of you insects. That you should
persistently remain at your present depressed level! That you should
not immediately enter upon a process of self-development! Look at the
Bee! How did she acquire her sting, think you? Why cannot you store up
honey, as she does?”
“We cannot build cells,” suggested a Butterfly.
“And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind
with the elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been
when the Bee was as incapable of architectural construction as
yourselves, when you and she alike were indiscriminable particles of
primary protoplasm. (I suppose you know what that is.) One has in
process of time exalted itself to the cognition of mathematical truth,
while the other—Pshaw! Now, really, my friends, I must beg you to take
my observations in good part. I do not imply, of course, that any
endeavours of yours in the direction I have indicated could benefit any
of you personally, or any of your posterity for numberless generations.
But I really do consider that after a while its effects would be very
observable—that in twenty millions of years or so, provided no
geological cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, with your innate
genius for mimicry, might be conformed in all respects to the
hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry out the principle of development
into novel and unheard-of directions. You should derive much
encouragement from the beginning you have made already.”
“How a beginning?” inquired a Butterfly.
“I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars,” returned
the Philosopher. “Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I
admit, remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much
further. With such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible
that you should so long have remained stationary. You ought to be all
toads by this time, at the very least.”
“I beg your pardon,” civilly interposed the Butterfly. “To what
condition were you pleased to allude?”
“To that of a Caterpillar,” rejoined the Philosopher.
“Caterpillar!” echoed the Butterfly, and “Caterpillar!” tittered all
his volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery
waves of fairy laughter. “Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were
once Caterpillars! He! he! he!”
“Do you actually mean to say you don’t know that?” responded the
Philosopher, scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but
inwardly rejoicing at the prospect of a controversy in which he could
not be worsted.
“We know nothing of the sort,” rejoined a Butterfly.
“Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic
antecedents?”
“We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been
Butterflies.”
“Sir,” said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters,
crawling from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency
of several legs, “let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific
status from the inconsiderate assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am
proud to assure you that our race comprises many philosophical
reasoners—mostly indeed such as have been disabled by accidental
injuries from joining in the amusements of the rest. The Origin of our
Species has always occupied a distinguished place in their
investigations. It has on several occasions engaged the attention of
our profoundest thinkers for not less than two consecutive minutes.
There is hardly a quadruped on the land, a bird in the air, or a fish
in the water to which it has not been ascribed by some one at some
time; but never, I am rejoiced to say, has any Butterfly ever dreamed
of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to which you have
unaccountably made reference.”
“We should rather think not,” chorussed all the Butterflies.
“Look here,” said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large
hairy Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. “Look here, what
do you call this?”
“An abnormal organisation,” said the scientific Butterfly.
“A nasty beast,” said the others.
“Heavens,” exclaimed the Philosopher, “the obtuseness and arrogance of
these creatures! No, my poor friend,” continued he, addressing the
Caterpillar, “disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect
certainly is at present, the time is at hand when you will prank it
with the gayest of them all.”
“I cry your mercy,” rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, “but I
was digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt
manner, and I did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you
to mention my name in connection with those flutterers?”
“I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they.”
“I,” exclaimed the Caterpillar, “I retrograde to the level of a
Butterfly! Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?”
“I was not aware of that,” replied the Philosopher, “although,” he
added in a conciliatory tone, “far be it from me to deny you the
possession of many interesting qualities.”
“You probably refer to my agility,” suggested the Caterpillar; “or
perhaps to my abstemiousness?”
“I was not referring to either,” returned the Philosopher.
“To my utility to mankind?”
“Not by any manner of means.”
“To what then?”
“Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be
the prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly.”
The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at
the Philosopher. The Philosopher’s countenance fell. A thrush, darting
from an adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore
the latter away in his bill. At the same moment the shower
prognosticated by the Sage burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in
all directions, drenching the Philosopher, whose foresight had not
assumed the shape of an umbrella, and spoiling his new hat. But he had
ample consolation in the superiority of his head. And the Caterpillar
was right too, for after all he never did become a Butterfly.