One sees quite well that the acquisitions of the individual have passed to the descendant, but how? How have they fixed themselves in the nerves and blood during a few short days of life? Without any apprenticeship the sphex paralyzes with three stabs the cricket which is to feed its larvæ; if the cricket is killed and not paralyzed, the larvæ will die, poisoned by the carrion; and if the paralysis is not durable the cricket will come to, and destroy the sphex in the egg. The manœuvre of this wasp and of many other killing hymenoptera has this tiresome point for our reasoning, the act must be perfect, on pain of death. Nevertheless it must be admitted that the sphex has formed itself slowly, like all complex animals, and that its genius is only the sum of intellectual acquisition slowly crystallized in the specie.[4] As for the mechanism of this transformation of intelligence into instinct, it has for motive the principle of utility; intelligent acts which are useful for the preservation of the specie, are the only ones which pass into instinct.
The science of these hymenoptera goes so far that it was ahead of human science until yesterday. The insect attacks the nervous system; it knows that the power of beginning a movement lies in the nervous system and not in the limbs. If the nervous system is centralized as in weevils, their enemy the cerceris gives only one dagger-stab; if the movement depends on three ganglia, it gives three stabs; if on nine ganglia, nine: thus does the shaggy ammophile when it needs the caterpillar of the noctuelle, commonly called the gray worm, for its larvæ; if a single sting in the cervical ganglion appears too dangerous, the hunter limits himself to chewing it gently, in order to induce the necessary degree of immobility. It is odd that the social hymenoptera who know how to do so many difficult things, are ignorant of this savant dagger-play. The bee stings at random, and so brutally that she mutilates herself while often inflicting but an insignificant wound on her adversary. Collective civilization has diminished the individual genius.
[1] Vide Milton and Cheaddle, works already cited.
[2] Compare this with the valuable remarks of a gamekeeper, "One must know the habits of animals, even their manias, for they have them, just as we do." Figaro, 31, Aug. 1903.
[3] To my mind a slight unsoundness creeps into Chap. XVI, and here both Fabre and Gourmont seem to me to go astray in considering the insect as a separate creature, i. e. a creature cut off from its larva or cocoon life. Surely the animal may be supposed to exist while in its cocoon or larva, it may reasonably be supposed to pass that period in reflection, preparing for precisely the acts of its desire (as for example an intelligent young man might pass his years in a university under professors, awaiting reasonable maturity to act or express his objections). The larva has its months of quiet, precisely the necessary pre-reflection for the two days' joy-ride of exterior manifestation, amours, etc., its contemplatio, or what may be counted as analogous, passing in its cell. The perfection and precision of its acts, being, let us say, proportionate to the non-expressive period. Having spent God knows how long in that possibly monotonous nest, it seems small wonder that the insect should know the pattern by heart. Small wonder, that is to say wonder not incommensurate with the general wonder of the whole process.—E. P.
[4] Vide translator's postscript.
[CHAPTER XX]
TYRANNY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
Accord and discord between organs and acts.—Torses and sacred scarab.—The hand of man.—Mediocre fitness of sexual organs for copulation.—Origin of "luxuria."—The animal is a nervous system served by organs.—The organ does not determine the aptitude.—Man's hand inferior to his genius.—Substitution of one sense for another.—Union and rôle of the senses in love.—Man and animal under the tyranny of the nervous system.—Wear and tear of humanity compensated by acquisitions.—Man's inheritors.