FABRE’S WRITINGS (CONTINUED)
In attempting to define the point of view, the method, and the style of
the author of the Souvenirs, we have broadly sketched the general
characteristics of his work. In order to complete our task, and to give
a clear and comprehensive idea of his art, we will now venture upon a
rapid analysis not of the author’s attitude but of the content of his
works.
The Souvenirs entomologiques bear a sub-title which perfectly describes
their essential and characteristic elements. They are offered as
“Studies in the Instincts and Habits of the Insects,” which promise us
both theoretical considerations and records of facts:
At the very outset, and to judge only very superficially, it seems
that these latter are the essential part of the work, and the
author must be considered before all as an admirable anecdotist,
or, if you will, a chronicler of animal life. But we very soon
perceive, on reading him, how much method, selection, and
persevering determination have presided over all these
investigations, which may appear almost incoherent, and are, on the
contrary, profoundly systematic and definitely ordered. [167]
François Coppée, in a delightful story, shows us an austere
landscape gardener fiercely destroying all the sparrows and, above
all, the blackbirds, which disturb and dishonour the magnificent
symmetry of his paths, which were clipped straight with the aid of
a taut cord. Our gentleman does not leave a single one alive....
But on the other side of the party wall is a true poet, who, not
having the same æsthetic, buys every day a quantity of birds in the
market, and indefatigably “puts back the blackbirds” into his
neighbour’s shrubberies. [168]
Fabre’s work is that of a conscientious architect who has sought to
keep the shrubberies and alleys of his garden in strict order, but the
racial poet lurking behind the architect has released so many
blackbirds that he seems to have destroyed the tidiness of the garden.
Just at first, the Souvenirs produce somewhat the same impression as
the harmas, where the thousand actors of the rural stage follow one
another, appear and reappear, at varied intervals, at the will of
opportunity or caprice, without premeditated order. But the observer is
not always master of his encounters and discoveries, and Fabre wished
to give us, in his books, the faithful record of his observations, and
afford us the pleasure in our turn of those unexpected encounters,
those marvellous discoveries which made his life an enchantment, and
which lend his narrative an interest equal to that of the most dramatic
romance.
Yet there has been a selection, a definite arrangement of the vast
collection of data collected in the ten volumes of the Souvenirs.
But this arrangement and this selection are by no means inspired by the
official classifications. We may attempt, as many eminent naturalists
have done, to class his various monographs in the classic manner. We
shall then say, with M. Perrier, that he is not greatly occupied with
the Lepidoptera, that he studies more particularly the Hymenoptera,
Coleoptera, and Orthoptera, without neglecting the Arachnoids, which
are Arthropods, not insects properly so called. It is a fact that this
singular entomologist prefers the horrible Spiders, to whom all the
good text-books refuse the name of insect, to the most beautiful
Butterflies. It is true that he is especially attracted by the
four-winged flies, the Wasps and wild Bees, the Dung-Beetles and
Necrophori, the Mantes, Grasshoppers, and Scorpions; but this is not
because of any particular affection for this group or on account of
their quality of Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, and Orthoptera; for many of
their congeners are neglected and many insects are selected out of
their order. This is bound to be the case, for the official
classification is conceived on totally different lines to his own,
going by the form of the insect without heeding its actions and its
habits. It is much the same with the official nomenclature.
“If, by chance, an amalgam of Greek or Latin gives a meaning which
alludes to its manner of life, the reality is very often in
disagreement with the name, because the classifier, working over a
necropolis, has outstripped the observer, whose attention is fixed upon
the community of the living.” [169]
So the historian of the insects takes the greatest liberties with
official science and the official language.
A Spider is not an insect, according to the rules of
classification; and as such the Epeira seems out of place here. A
fig for systems! It is immaterial to the student of instinct
whether the animal have eight legs instead of six, or pulmonary
sacs instead of air-tubes. [170]
Above all, Fabre is interested in the study of instinct. It is this
that determines his choice of the species and the data with which he
occupies his leisure and entertains his readers.
Led by this purpose, allured by this vision, he turns by preference to
the most richly-endowed species, disdaining the inept, though they may
be the most beautiful and the most resplendent, like the Butterflies;
and he is often attracted by creatures, great or small, which have
scarcely anything in common with the insects save their habits. Thus
the ferocity of the Spiders will justify their taking rank next to the
Scorpions, the Mantes and the Grasshoppers, the cruelest and most
ancient of terrestrial creatures.
Fabre, in fact, seldom departed from the world of insects, because it
is in this little world that the greatest miracles of instinct are
manifested, in accordance with the entomologist’s motto Maxima in
minimis. And, as though to increase this prodigious contrast, it often
happens that the most remarkable instincts are allotted to the smallest
and most despised of insects:
Among the insects it is often the case that one well known to all
is a mere simpleton, while another, unknown, has real capacity.
Endowed with talents worthy of attention, it remains misunderstood;
rich in costume and imposing in deportment, it is familiar to us.
We judge it by its coat and its size, as we judge our neighbour by
the fineness of his clothes and the place which he occupies. The
rest does not count.
Certainly, in order to deserve historical honours, it is as well
that the insect should possess a popular reputation. It reassures
the reader, who is at once precisely informed; further, it shortens
the narrative, rids it of long and tedious descriptions. On the
other hand, if size facilitates observation, if grace of form and
brilliance of costume captivate the eye, we should do wrong not to
take this outward show into account.
But far more important are the habits, the ingenious operations,
which give entomological studies their serious attraction. Now it
will be found that among the insects the largest, the most
splendid, are usually inept creatures: a contradiction which is
reproduced elsewhere. What can we expect from a Carabas, all
glittering with metallic lights? Nothing but feasting in the slime
of murdered snail. What of the Cetonia, escaped, one would think,
from a jeweller’s show-case? Nothing but drowsing in the heart of a
rose. These splendid creatures do nothing; they have no art or
craft.
But, on the other hand, if we are seeking original inventions,
artistic masterpieces and ingenious contrivance, let us apply to
the humblest, more often than not unknown to all. And let us not be
repulsed by appearances. Ordure reserves for us beautiful and
curious things of which we should not find the like upon the rose.
So far the Minotaur has enlightened us by her family habits. Long
live modesty and littleness! [171]
The small and modest, provided they are valiant and ingenious, and more
generally all those that commend themselves by unusual habits or
singular technical aptitudes: such are the insects investigated by the
author of the Souvenirs. These he follows up for years, sometimes in
their natural environment, sometimes in his laboratory. He inquires
into their manner of assuring themselves and their race of a
livelihood, their fashion of behaviour toward their congeners and their
offspring; their industry and their habits are his two chief
preoccupations, those which are brought into prominence by the
sub-title of his book: “Studies in the Instincts and Habits of the
Insects,” and the titles of the two volumes of selections which have
been published for the general reader: La Vie des Insectes and Les
Mœurs des Insectes.
It is, therefore, about these two principal themes, which are, for that
matter, very closely connected and very subject to mutual
interpenetration, that the data amassed in the ten volumes of the
Souvenirs must be grouped and distributed, if we wish to attempt a
classification in harmony with the character of the books and the
nature of their contents.
By thus assuming the point of view of the author himself and adopting
the principle and the form of his classifications and denominations, we
shall discover, in this little entomological world, which seems to have
been staged a little at random, a society as rich and varied as our
own, in which almost all trades and all characters are represented, all
the industries and habits of humanity.
Here, as among us, are honest toilers and free-booters, producers and
parasites; good and bad husbands and wives; examples of beautiful
devotion and hideous egoism; delightful amenities and ferocious
cruelties, extending even to cannibalism; workers of every class and
manufacturers of every kind, and, in a higher order of capacities,
engineers and surgeons, chemists and physicists, naturalists and
physiologists, topographers and meteorologists, geometricians and
logicians, and many more, whose enumeration we will leave to the
reader.
“Let us assemble facts in order to obtain ideas,” said Buffon. In this
process may be summed up the whole of the great Provençal naturalist’s
scientific work. If he notes the least circumstances of the little
lives that unfold themselves before his eyes, he does so not merely as
an observer and an artist who would not miss the smallest element of
knowledge or beauty, but also as a philosopher who wishes to understand
all that he sees, and for that reason neglects nothing. In entomology
the smallest facts are not only the most curious and picturesque, they
are often the most significant: maxima in minimis. Those minute details
which are in danger of being regarded as “puerilities are connected
with the most solemn questions which it is possible for man to
consider.” [172]
There are philosophical meditations in Fabre’s work, evoked by his
observations, and, like his observations, they are not presented in a
preconceived order. His arguments are scattered throughout his work.
Nowhere in the Souvenirs is there any body of doctrine. They contain
only studies of the habits of individual insects; and it is only when
he has gathered certain data or made certain experiments that the
author gives us his conclusions or explanations or attacks the errors
of the theories in vogue.
Yet it is not difficult, such is their degree of prominence and
continuity, to disengage and synthesise the general ideas scattered
throughout this vast collection of facts. We shall make the attempt in
order to give the reader at least a glimpse of the writer’s attitude
toward the problems of science and of life.
From the achievements and actions of the insects, the philosophic mind
of the naturalist first of all deduces, very clearly, the general laws
of their activity.
What strikes us at once is the wonderful degree of knowledge
presupposed by certain of their actions: for all that instinct impels
the insect to do is marked by perfect wisdom, comparable and even
superior to human wisdom. This first law of instinct is brought into
especial prominence by the author of the Souvenirs in his study of the
Hunting Wasps.
These Wasps, which are themselves purely vegetarian, know that their
larvæ must have animal food; fresh succulent flesh still quivering with
life.
Some, like the Common Wasp, which watches over the growth of its
offspring, feed the larvæ from day to day, as the bird brings beakfuls
of food to its nestlings, and these kill their prey, which they are
thus able to serve to their larvæ perfectly fresh.
But the majority do not watch over the hatching or the growth of their
larvæ. They are forced therefore to lay up a store of food beforehand.
They know this, and are not found wanting. But here they are confronted
by a most difficult problem. If the prey carried to the nest is dead,
it will quickly putrefy; it cannot possibly keep fresh, as it must, for
the weeks and months of the larva’s growth. If it is alive it cannot
easily be seized by the larvæ, and will represent a menace or even a
deadly danger. The Wasp must discover the secret of producing, in her
victims, the immobility of death together with the incorruptibility of
life. And the Wasps have discovered this secret, for the prey which
they provide for their larvæ remain at their disposal to the end
without movement and without deterioration. Do these tiny creatures
know intuitively the secrets of asepsis which Pasteur discovered with
so much difficulty? Such was the conclusion with which Dufour was
forced to content himself. He presumed the existence, in the Hunting
Wasps, of a virus which was at once a weapon of the chase and a liquid
preservative, for the immolation and conservation of the victims. But
even if aseptic a dead insect would shrivel up into a mummy. Now this
must not occur, and as a matter of fact the Wasp’s victims remain moist
indefinitely, just as if alive. And in reality they are not dead; they
are still alive. Fabre has demonstrated this by proving the persistence
of the organic functions, and by feeding some of them by hand. In
short, it is incontestable that the victims are not put to death but
merely deprived of movement, smitten with paralysis. How has this
result, more miraculous even than asepsis, been obtained by the insect?
By the procedure that the most skilful physiologist would employ. By
plunging its sting into the victim’s body, not at random, which might
kill it, but at certain definite points, exactly where the invisible
nervous ganglia are located which control the various movements.
For the rest, the operative method varies according to the species and
anatomy of the victim.
In his investigation of the paralysers, Dufour was unable to imagine
any other weapon of the chase than the mere inoculation of a deadly
virus; the Hymenopteron has invented a means of immobilising her victim
without killing it, of abolishing its movements without destroying its
organic functions, of dissociating the nervous system of the vegetative
life from that of the life of reaction; to spare the first while
annihilating the second, by the precise adaptation of this delicate
surgery to the victim’s anatomy and physiology. Dufour was unable to
provide anything better for the larva’s larder than mummified victims,
shrivelled and more or less flavourless; the Hymenopteron provided them
with living prey, endowed with the strange prerogative of keeping fresh
indefinitely without food and without movement, thanks to paralysis,
far superior in this connection to asepsis.
“He, the master, skilled among the skilful, trained in the finest
operations of anatomy; he who, with lens and scalpel, had examined the
whole entomological series, leaving not a corner unexplored; he,
finally, who has nothing more to learn of the organisation of the
insect, can think of nothing better than an antiseptic fluid which
gives at least an appearance of an explanation of a fact that leaves
him confounded,” and of which he has not discovered the full miracle.
The author of this immortal discovery rightly insists on “this
comparison between the insect’s instinct and the scientist’s reason,
the better to reveal in its true light the crushing superiority of the
insect.”
As though to give yet another verification of the words so justly
applied to entomology—maxime miranda in minimis—the larva’s science is
perhaps even more disconcerting than that of the perfect insect.
The Scolia’s larva stupefies us by the order in which it proceeds to
devour its victim.
“It proceeds from the less essential to the more essential, in order to
preserve a remnant of life to the very last. In the first place it
absorbs the blood which issues from the wound which it has made in the
skin; then it proceeds to the fatty matter enveloping the internal
organs; then the muscular layer lining the skin; and then, in the last
place, the essential organs and the nerve-centres.” [173] “We thus have
the spectacle of an insect which is eaten alive, morsel by morsel,
during a period of nearly a fortnight, becoming empty and emaciated and
collapsing upon itself,” while preserving its succulence and moisture
to the end.
Starting with these typical facts, which testify to an infallible
foresight and a perfect adaptation of the means to the end, the list
might be indefinitely prolonged with the aid of Fabre’s memoirs. But
these are enough to show us that “what instinct tells the animal is
marvellously like what reason tells us,” so that we find nothing
unnatural in Fabre’s exclamation when he is confronted by the profound
knowledge of the Hymenopteron and “the sublime logic of her stings.”
“Proud Science, humble yourself!” All this presumes, in short, in the
microscopic little creatures an astonishingly rational inspiration
which adapts means to the end with a logic that confounds us.
And all this would be very much to the credit of the insect and to the
disadvantage of man if there were not a reverse side to the medal. But
the same insect that confounds us by its knowledge and wisdom also
disconcerts us by its ignorance and stupidity.
The best-endowed insect cannot do anything “outside the narrow circle
of its attributions. Every insect displays, in its calling, in which it
excels, its series of logically co-ordinated actions. There it is truly
a master.” [174] Apart from this it is utterly incapable. And even
within the cycle of its attributions, apart from the customary
conditions under which it exercises them, the ineptness of the insect
surpasses imagination.
Let us consider the facts.
One of these Hymenoptera whose impeccable science we were admiring just
now, a Languedocian Sphex, is busy closing the burrow in which she has
laid her egg with its store of game. We brush her aside, and plunder
her nest before her eyes. Directly the passage is free, she enters and
remains for a few moments. Then she emerges and proceeds to stop up the
cell, as though nothing were the matter, as though she had not found
her burrow empty, as though the work of closing the cell had still a
motive. [175]
The Mason-Bee, excellently endowed in the matter of boring, emerges
from her nest of mortar by piercing the earthen dome which covers it.
Let us cover the nest from which the Bee is about to emerge with a
little paper bag. If the bag is placed in contact with the nest so as
to make one piece with it, so to speak, the Bee perforates it and
liberates herself. If it is not in contact with the nest, she remains
imprisoned and will let herself die without perforating the bag.
“Here, then, are sturdy insects for whom boring tufa is mere child’s
play, which will stupidly let themselves perish imprisoned by a paper
bag,” [176] to which it does not even occur to bite a second time
through the frail envelope through which they have already bitten once
when it was, so to speak, part of the earthen enclosure.
The Wasp, which is such a marvellous architect, and so skilful a
digger, is no better able to employ her talents. During the night we
place a bell-glass over a Wasp’s nest. In the morning the Wasps issue
forth and struggle against the glass wall, but not one of them dreams
of digging at the foot of the treacherous circle. But one Wasp, of
several which have strayed from the community, coming from outside,
opens up a way to the nest under the edge of the bell-glass, which is a
natural enough proceeding for an insect returning from the fields, who
may have to gain her nest through falls of earth in the entry. But even
this particular Wasp cannot repeat the operation in order to emerge
from the bell-glass, and the whole community eventually die prisoners
after a week of futile agitation. The entomologist finds this ineptness
of the Wasp repeated in the Necrophori, who nevertheless have a great
reputation for intelligence, and, in general, in all the insects which
he has had occasion to rear under a bell-glass.
The larva is subject to the same absurdities as the adult insect. The
Scolia’s larva, which eats in such a scientific manner, is quite unable
to apply its remarkable talents the moment it is off the beaten track.
Placed on the victim’s back at a spot which is not the normal point of
attack, placed on a Cetonia-grub that is immobilised without being
paralysed, or merely removed for a moment from its position, it is no
longer able to do anything right.
By a strange contradiction, characteristic of the instinctive
faculties, profound knowledge is associated with an ignorance no
less profound.... For instinct nothing is difficult, so long as the
action does not diverge from the immutable cycle laid down for the
insect; for instinct, again, nothing is easy if the action has to
diverge from the paths habitually followed. The instinct which
amazes us, which terrifies us by its supreme lucidity, astonishes
us by its stupidity a moment later, when confronted with the
simplest situation which is alien to its ordinary practice....
Instinct knows everything in the invariable tracks which have been
laid down for it; nothing when off this track.
Sublime inspirations of science and amazing inconsequences of
stupidity are both its heritage, accordingly as it is acting under
normal or accidental conditions. [177]
It would be interesting to pursue this inquiry into the general laws of
instinct, and to give, as a pendant to the antithesis of its wisdom and
stupidity, the no less singular antithesis of its automatism and its
variations. But that we may not beyond all measure enlarge the
proportions of this monograph we will pass on at once to the
determination of the causes of instinct, as related by our naturalist
philosopher.
The laudator temporis acti is untimely, for the world progresses.
Yes, but backwards at times. In my young days, in the twopenny
classics, we were taught that man is a reasoning animal; to-day, in
learned volumes, it is demonstrated that human reason is only a
higher degree upon a scale whose base descends into the depths of
animality. There is the more and the less, and all the intermediate
degrees, but nowhere a sudden solution of continuity. It begins at
zero in the albumen of a cell, and rises to the mighty brain of a
Newton. The noble faculty of which we were so proud is a zoological
attribute.
This is an assertion of grave significance.... Assuredly we have
need of ingenuousness in entomology. Without a good dose of this
quality, sheer wrongheadedness in the eyes of practical folk, who
could trouble himself about insects? Yes, let us be naïve, without
being childishly credulous. Before making the animal reason, let us
reason a little ourselves. Above all, let us consult the
experimental test. Facts gathered at random, without a critical
selection, cannot constitute a law. [178]
And the prudent naturalist sifts all the anecdotes and records of
habits, all the rational or sentimental achievements which the writers
of books and the “glorifiers of the animal” pass from hand to hand,
showing clearly that all the facts alleged in proof of the intelligence
of animals are ill-observed or wrongly interpreted.
Having shown in its true light one of these fabricated facts related by
Clairville, he cries:
Yet one more of the fine arguments in support of the animal’s
reasoning powers that takes to flight in the light of
experiment.... I admire your candid faith, my masters, you who take
seriously the statements of chance observers richer in imagination
than in veracity. I admire your credulous enthusiasm, when, without
criticism, you support your theories on such stupidities. [179]
Fabre has no greater faith in the virtue of animals than in their
reason, since one cannot exist without the other. It is true that the
Copris, the most richly endowed of insects in respect of the maternal
instinct, does not differentiate between the care which she lavishes on
strangers and that which she gives to the children of her household;
but the pitiless observer shows that this is because she cannot
distinguish between them.
It is not the function of impartial history to maintain a given
thesis; it follows where the facts lead it. [180]
The historian of the insects simply confronts the facts of the
entomological world which he has explored under all its aspects:
To speak with certainty, we must not depart from what we really
know. I am beginning to know the insect passably well after forty
years of intercourse with it. Let us question the insect: not the
first comer, but the best endowed, the Hymenopteron. I am generous
to my opponents. Where will you find a creature richer in
talents?... Well, does this refined and privileged member of the
animal kingdom reason?
And, first of all, what is reason? Philosophy will give us learned
definitions. Let us be modest; let us stick to the simplest; we are
only dealing with animals. Reason is the faculty which refers the
effect to the cause, the means to the end, and directs the action
by making it conform to the requirements of the accidental. Within
these limits is the animal able to reason? Does it understand how
to associate a because with a why, and behave in accordance? Can
it, confronted with an accident, alter its line of conduct? [181]
To all these questions the facts already cited have replied. It is
evident that the Hymenopteron which provisions or closes the nest found
empty under the conditions which we have seen imposed upon the Sphex or
the Pelopæus, is ignorant of the why of her work and does not in any
case connect it with its natural aim, which is the rearing of the
larvæ.
These expert surgeons, these marvellous anatomists know nothing
whatever, not even what their victims are intended for. Their
talent, which confounds our reason, is devoid of a shadow of
consciousness of the work accomplished, a shadow of foresight
concerning the egg. [182]
Fabre, then, has vainly sought for “proofs” of the intervention of
reason in the actions of the insect. He has not found them. He has even
found the very contrary; the insect, interrogated as to its powers of
reason and “the logic attributed to it,” has plainly replied that it is
entirely lacking in reason and that logic is not its strong point.
Yet he is far from wishing to “belittle the merits” or “diminish the
reputation” of his beloved insects. No one can be less suspected of
prejudice against them, since none has “glorified” them more
abundantly; no one has spoken of them with greater admiration and
sympathy; no one has more fully described their high achievements, and
no one has revealed such unknown and incredible marvels on their
behalf. It is enough to recall the “miracles” of the science and wisdom
of the paralysers.
But far from invalidating the conclusion drawn from the obvious
stupidity of the insect even in the actions which are its specialty,
the science and wisdom of instinct afford it a striking confirmation.
The very “slightest glimmer of intelligence” would suffice to make the
insect do what it does not and leave undone what it does even within
the circumference of its attributions. If it is plainly devoid of this
glimmer, how much more plainly is it devoid of that “splendour of
intelligence” which the “miracles” of instinct would require! [183] To
sum up, the insect sins too greatly by excess and by defect in its
instinctive actions to justify our attributing to it an understanding
of these actions; we are indeed compelled absolutely to deny it any
such understanding. It does at once too much and too little; too much
for an insect’s intelligence and too little for any intelligence
whatever. Everything is against it; its knowledge as much as its
ignorance; its logic as much as its inconsequences.
So long as its circumstances are normal, the insect’s actions are
calculated most rationally in view of the object to be attained.
What could be more logical, for instance, than the devices employed
by the Hunting Wasp when paralysing her prey so that it may keep
fresh for her larva, while in no wise imperilling that larva’s
safety? It is pre-eminently rational; we ourselves could think of
nothing better; and yet the Wasp’s action is not prompted by
reason. If she thought out her surgery, she would be our superior.
It will never occur to anybody that the creature is able, in the
smallest degree, to account for its skilful vivisections.
Therefore, so long as it does not depart from the path mapped out
for it, the insect can perform the most sagacious actions without
entitling us in the least to attribute these to the dictates of
reason. [184]
These acts of instinct, so scientifically devised and so rationally
performed by works devoid of either judgment or reason, must be
explained by referring them to a proportionate cause, whence proceed
the logic and the science which evidently do not proceed from the
insect itself.
I consign to the meditations of philosophy these five makers of
spherical conserves—[he is speaking of the Scarabæi]—and their
numerous rivals. I consign to them these inventors of the spherical
box, of greater volume and smaller surface, for provisions liable
to dry up, and I ask them how such logical inspirations, such
rational provisions, could unfold themselves in the murky intellect
of the insect.... The work of the pill-makers propounds a grave
problem to him who is capable of reflection. It confronts us with
this alternative: either we must attribute to the flat cranium of
the Dung-beetle the notable honour of having solved for itself the
geometrical problem of its conserve, or we must refer it to a
harmony ruling all things beneath the eye of an Intelligence that,
knowing all, has foreseen all.... If the Rhynchites and its
emulators in defensive means against the perils of asphyxia have
taught themselves their trade; if they are really the children of
their works, do not let us hesitate ... let us recognise them as
engineers capable of winning our diplomas and degrees; let us
proclaim the microcephalic Weevil a powerful thinker, a wonderful
inventor. You dare not go to these lengths; you prefer to have
recourse to the chances of hazard. Ah, but what a wretched resource
is hazard, when such rational contrivances are in question! One
might as well throw into the air the characters of the alphabet and
expect to see them, on falling, form certain lines selected from a
poem! Instead of loading our minds with such tortuous ideas, how
much simpler and more truthful to say: “A sovereign Order rules
over matter.” This is what the Sloe Weevil tells us in its
humility! [185]
We heard the same language, uttered perhaps even more persuasively,
from the Hairy Ammophila, among many others, one day when, as a
beginner in entomology, he considered her performing her delicate and
expert operations, bending over a bank on the table-land of Les Angles,
in company with a friend:
The Wasp acts with a precision of which science would be jealous;
she knows what man hardly ever knows; she understands the complex
nervous system of her victim.... I say, she knows and understands;
I ought to say, she acts as though she knew and understood. Her act
is all inspiration. The insect, without having any conception of
what it is doing, obeys the instinct that impels it. But whence
comes this sublime inspiration?... For me and my friend, this was
and has remained one of the most eloquent revelations of the
ineffable logic that rules the world and guides the unconscious by
the laws of its inspiration. Moved to the depths by this flash of
truth, we felt, forming upon our eyelids, tears of indefinable
emotion. [186]
The more he sees, the more he reflects, the more radiantly clear does
the meaning of these facts appear to him:
Can the insect have acquired its skill gradually, from generation
to generation, by a long series of casual experiments, of blind
gropings? Can such order be born of chaos; such foresight of
hazard; such wisdom of stupidity? Is the world subject to the
fatalities of evolution, from the first albuminous atom which
coagulated into a cell, or is it ruled by an Intelligence? The more
I see and the more I observe, the more does this Intelligence shine
behind the mystery of things. I know that I shall not fail to be
treated as an abominable “final causer.” Little do I care! A sure
sign of being right in the future is to be out of fashion in the
present.
A long time ago [says a contemporary apologist], I was discussing
matters with an astronomer who was possessed of knowledge, a
certain penetration and a certain courage. He pushed this
penetration and this courage to the length of declaring, before the
Academy of Sciences, that the laws of nature form a harmony and
reveal a plan.
I had an opportunity of congratulating him, and he was good enough
to express his satisfaction. I profited by this to suggest that he
was doubtless ready to develop his conclusions yet further, and
that since he recognised the existence of a plan he admitted, at
the origin of things, a Mind: in short, an intelligent Being.
Suddenly my astronomer turned up his nose, without offering me any
argument capable of any sort of analysis.
In vain did I explain that to deduce the existence of an
intelligent Being because one has discovered the existence of a
plan is, after all, to continue the train of reasoning which
deduces the existence of a plan after observing that there is a
system of laws. In vain I pointed out that I was merely making use
of his own argument. My astronomer refused to go any further along
the path upon which he had entered. There he would have met God,
and that was what he was unwilling to do. [187]
J. H. Fabre does not stop half-way to the truth for fear of meeting
God. He is logical, loyal, and courageous to the end. He argues from
the facts to laws and from laws to causes, and from them to the “Cause
of causes,” the “Reason of reasons,” [188] concerning which, says M.
Perrier, he has not “the pedantic feebleness of grudging it the name of
God.” [189]
If Fabre so briskly attacks the theory of evolution, it is not so much
because of the biological results which it attributes to the animal far
niente as because it offers such a convenient pretext for that sort of
intellectual laziness that willingly relies upon an explanation
provided beforehand and readily exonerates itself from the difficult
task of searching more deeply into the domain of facts as well as that
of causes. [190] If the explanation were not notoriously insufficient
one might overlook the abuses which it covers, innocently enough, but,
to speak only of the insect, all its analyses, were they admissible,
leave the problem of instinct untouched: “How did the insect acquire so
discerning an art? An eternal problem if we do not rise above the dust
to dust” [191] of evolution. At all events, as it is presented it is
merely, we repeat, “a convenient pillow for the man who has not the
courage to investigate more deeply.” [192] For him, he has this courage
and this power of ascension, and he readily spreads his wings to rise
above matter and the night of this world and soar to those radiant
heights where Divinity reveals itself, together with the supreme
explanation of the light which lightens this darkness and the life that
inspires this matter. [193]
We have said enough to show that Fabre is decidedly of the race of
those great men who soar high above the vulgar prejudices, pedantries,
and weaknesses, and whose wonderful discoveries bring them nearer to
God as they uplift them above the common level of humanity.
Having written The Harmony of the World, and casting a final glance at
the charts of the heavens and also at the long labour of his life,
Kepler offered his God this homage:
O Thou, who by the light of Nature hast caused us to sigh after the
light of grace, in order to reveal unto us the light of Thy glory,
I thank Thee, my Creator and my God, that Thou hast permitted me to
admire and to love Thy works. I have now finished the work of my
life with the strength of the understanding which Thou hast
vouchsafed me; I have recounted to men the glory of Thy works, in
so far as my mind has been able to comprehend their infinite
majesty.... Praise the Creator, O my soul! It is by Him and in Him
that all exists, the material world as well as the spiritual world,
all that we know and all that we do not know as yet, for there
remains much for us to do that we leave unfinished....
Uniting the point of view of exegesis with that of natural science, one
of the greatest and broadest minds of antiquity, Origen, has written
these noble words:
The providential action of God manifests itself in the minute
corpuscles of the animals as well as in the superior beings; it
directs with the same foresight the step of an ant and the courses
of the sun and the moon. It is the same in the supernatural domain.
The Holy Spirit which has inspired our sacred Scriptures has
penetrated them with its inspiration to the last letter: Divina
sapientia omnem Scripturam divitus datam vel adunam usque
litterulam attigit.... [194]
The reader will doubtless pardon a professor of exegesis, whose
admiration for the prince of entomologists has made him his biographer,
for terminating this analysis of the naturalist’s philosophical and
religious ideas by a synthetic view which brings him into closer
communion with his hero: “all things are linked together,” as he
himself has said, [195] and the study of the Holy Scriptures, if he
could have devoted himself thereto, would certainly have led this noble
and penetrating mind to render the same testimony to the truth of
Christ and the Church as that which it has rendered to the truth of the
soul and God.