Fabre, Poet of Science

by Georges Victor Legros

It was at this period above all that he felt so "lonely, abandoned, struggling against misfortune; and before one can philosophize one has to live." [(5/9.)]

And his incessant labour was aggravated by a bitter disappointment. In the year of Mill's death Fabre was dismissed from his post as conservator of the Requien Museum, which he had held in spite of his departure from Avignon, going thither regularly twice a week to acquit himself of his duties. The municipality, working in the dark, suddenly dismissed him without explanation. To Fabre this dismissal was infinitely bitter; "a sweeper-boy would have been treated with as much ceremony." [(5/10.)] What afflicted him most was not the undeserved slight of the dismissal, but his unspeakable regret at quitting those beloved vegetable collections, "amassed with such love" by Requien, who was his friend and master, and by Mill and himself; and the thought that he would henceforth perhaps be unable to save these precious but perishable things from oblivion, or terminate the botanical geography of Vaucluse, on which he had been thirty years at work!

For this reason, when there was some talk of establishing an agronomic station at Avignon, and of appointing him director, he was at first warmly in favour of the idea. [(5/11.)] Already he foresaw a host of fascinating experiments, of the highest practical value, conducted in the peace and leisure and security of a fixed appointment. It is indeed probable that in so vast a field he would have demonstrated many valuable truths, fruitful in practical results; he was certainly meant for such a task, and he would have performed it with genuine personal satisfaction. He had already exerted his ingenuity by trying to develop, among the children of the countryside, a taste for agriculture, which he rightly considered the logical complement of the primary school, and which is based upon all the sciences which he himself had studied, probed, taught, and popularized.

It will be remembered how patiently he devoted himself for twelve years to the study of madder, multiplying his researches, and applying himself not only to extracting the colouring principle, but also to indicating means whereby adulteration and fraud might be detected.

He had published memoirs of great importance dealing with entomology in its relations to agriculture. Impressed with the importance of this little world, he suggested valuable remedies, means of preservation; which were all the more logical in that the destruction of insects, if it is to be efficacious, must be based not upon a gross empiricism, but on a previous study of their social life and their habits.

With what patience he observed the terribly destructive weevils, and those formidable moths with downy wings, which fly without sound of a night, and whose depredations have often been valued at millions of francs! How meticulously he has recorded the conditions which favour or check the development of those parasitic fungi whose mortal blemishes are seen on buds and flowers, on the green shoots and clusters that promise a prosperous vintage!

But then he became anxious. Was it all worth the sacrifice of his liberty? "Would he not suffer a thousand annoyances from pretentious nobodies?" for as things were, all ideas of again "enregimenting" himself "filled him with horror." [(5/12.)]

Slowly, however, the first instalment of the work which he had spent nearly twenty-five years in planning, creating, and polishing, began to take shape. At the end of the year 1878 he was able to assemble a sufficient number of studies to form material for what was to be the first volume of his "Souvenirs entomologiques." (A selection of which forms "Social Life in the Insect World" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1912).)

Let us stop for a moment to consider this first book, whose publication constitutes a truly historical date, not only in the career of Fabre, but in the annals of universal science. It was at once the foundation and the keystone of the marvellous edifice which we shall watch unfolding and increasing, but to which the future was in reality to add nothing essential. The cardinal ideas as to instinct and evolution, the necessity of experimenting in the psychology of animals, and the harmonic laws of the conservation of the individual, are here already expounded in their final and definite form. This fruitful and decisive year brought Fabre a great grief. He lost his son Jules, that one of all his children whom he seems most ardently to have loved.

He was a youth of great promise, "all fire, all flame"; of a serious nature; an exquisite being, of a precocious intelligence, whose rare aptitudes both for science and literature were truly extraordinary. Such too was the subtlety of his senses that by handling no matter what plant, with his eyes closed, he could recognize and define it merely by the sense of touch. This delightful companion of his father's studies had scarcely passed his fifteenth year when death removed him. A terrible void was left in his heart, which was never filled. Thirty years later the least allusion to this child, however tactful, which recalled this dear memory to his mind, would still wring his heart, and his whole body would be shaken by his sobs. As always, work was his refuge and consolation; but this terrible blow shattered his health, until then so robust. In the midst of this disastrous winter he fell seriously ill. He was stricken with pneumonia, which all but carried him off, and every one gave him up for lost. However, he recovered, and issued from his convalescence as though regenerated, and with strength renewed he attacked the next stage of his labours.