NOTE 5.—Book i., Chap. v.
The Chilly Offspring of the Insect.—"But," the reader will exclaim, "what labour! How terrible a law of continuous efforts to be imposed on young beings, as yet but ill provided with tools, and without, that superb arsenal of implements which at a later stage we admire in the insect. How protracted are the means devised for their defence, which would be much sooner accomplished if they were born less soft, a little firmer, and somewhat less impressionable."
Yes; but in that case they would be just so far unfitted for the essential circumstance which ensures their development. Nature wishes them to be soft, ay, and very soft, that they may more easily undergo the moultings and painful changes which are imperative upon them,—which moultings, if the insect-substance were hard, would inflict upon it the most severe injuries. By instinct they are aware of this, and dread extremely lest their bodies should harden. The processionary caterpillars, for example, though covered thickly with hair, conceal themselves from the sun under ample curtains. And they are also mindful to issue forth only in the evening, when the damp and misty air may preserve their salutary humidity.
NOTE 6.—Book i., Chap. vii.
The Appearance of the Perfect Insect.—The anatomy of the insect has been the theme of one of the greatest disputes of our time. Some one having visited Goethe, soon after the French Revolution of July 1830:—"Well, well," inquired the illustrious sage, "have they settled the question?" And as the traveller seemed to think he referred to the political question, "Oh, it is something of far greater importance!" said Goethe; "I refer to the great duel between Cuvier and Geoffroy."
The world took part in it. Strauss and others remained faithful to Cuvier. The great physicist Ampère, in an anonymous article inserted in the first volume of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, adopted the opinions of Geoffroy, Audouin, and Serres, and even expressed them with a juvenile audacity that these anatomists, in their modesty, had not displayed.
All the complex details of their proceedings had been extracted and prepared [by Madame Michelet] for the present volume with a patience and persevering love such as could be inspired only by a true and tender religion of Nature. Barbarian that I am, I must sacrifice this arduous labour, which, perhaps, would not be much relished by the public to whom I address myself.
The place which the insect occupies in the animal creation is very clearly defined in Lacordaire's excellent résumé:—"Equal to the vertebrates in the energy of its muscular fibre, scarcely inferior to them in the organization of its digestive canal, superior even to the bird by the quantity of its respiration, it falls below the molluscs through the imperfection of its system of circulation. Its nervous system is less concentrated than that of many of the crustacea." (Lacordaire, vol. ii., p. 2.)