EDITORIAL AND GENERAL 



63 



The Pest-imist Point of View. 



I was recently invited by the De- 

 partment of Microscopy of The Brook- 

 lyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to 

 participate in the annual public exhi- 

 bition of interesting" microscopic spe- 

 cimens. I looked over my collection 

 and took into consideration some es- 

 pecially interesting things that I had 

 in process of preparation and selected 

 the chestnut burr, the chestnut weevil, 

 the ox fly, the house fly, the house fly's 

 tongue, the house fly crab, and the 

 seeds of the wild carrot. They were 

 all intensely interesting and beautiful. 

 At the exhibition they attracted much 

 public attention and considerable edi- 

 torial notice. Among the latter was 

 "The Saturday Evening Mail," which 

 published a full page description in the 

 issue of April 22. The principal thing 

 that attracted my attention was the 

 heading, "Nature Pests under a 

 Microscope." Of course, all the ob- 

 jects except the chestnut burr might 

 be regarded as pests, but as a natur- 

 alist I never thought of these beautiful 

 microscopic objects, the seeds of the 

 wild carrots, as pests, though I admit 

 that they may become pests to the 

 farmer. 



Perhaps when house flies get togeth- 

 er in solemn conclave and discuss their 

 trials and troubles they may regard 

 the little red crabs that cling to their 

 legs as pests, but I must confess that 

 the house fly point of view had never 

 entered my mind. The point that I 

 wish to make, and which greatly im- 

 pressed me, is the fact that the editor 

 interpolated into these beautiful things 

 from nature's microscopic realm the 

 utilitarian, humanistic consideration. I 

 might well ask why he could not be 

 contented to treat them as a naturalist 

 would do, and admire them for their 

 novel, beautiful structure, with no 

 thought for us humans, nor whether 

 they are pests or allies for good. But 

 I do not need to ask the question. I 

 know that the editor acted according 

 to his journalistic instinct; his editorial 

 sense recognized the point of view best 

 adapted to humanity. Does it affect 

 us; is it an annoyance or is it a good? 

 How few people there are who can 



admire a thing altruistically! We 

 must always interpolate the "I." Will 

 it hurt us or benefit us; what is in it 

 for us? I, I, I, I. The almighty dollar, 

 the "practical," the utilitarian is so 

 deeply imbedded in the human mind 

 that few people can look at the thing 

 as completely isolated from their own 

 interests. I intensely dislike the word 

 "pests" in the heading, but I would 

 have equally disliked the word friends. 

 Nature is worth while in hersesf 

 whether as a pest or a friend. 



Many centuries ago an astronomer 

 named Ptolemy formulated a theory 

 that the earth was the center of every- 

 thing and that everything revolved 

 around it. Though he got into a little 

 trouble when he tried to explain the 

 movements of the human objects of 

 that theory, he arose equal to the oc- 

 casion and with a series of cycles and 

 epicycles tried to unravel the tangle, 

 but the I, I, I, of the earth as a center 

 was so perniciously and deeply im- 

 bedded in his mind and the mind of all 

 his followers for some fourteen hun- 

 dred years, that none of them could 

 think of anything except the I, I, earth 

 as the center. 



Then along came Copernicus and 

 stated that the earth is only one of 

 many worlds, and things would go on 

 fairly well even if there were no earth. 

 He also stated that a body ninety- 

 three million miles away is really the 

 center of things and that after all we 

 are not much. "There are others" — 

 quite a number of planets. 



So I protest against this Ptolemaic 

 method of looking at things. Let us 

 sometimes, most of the time, if we 

 would understand nature rightly, stand 

 off and view it from the Copernican 

 standpoint. Those little details from 

 nature's microscopic realm were of 

 wonderful even miraculous beauty and 

 interest. If they had been ninety-three 

 million miles away from all mankind 

 they would have been worthy of ad- 

 miration. 



I have not the slightest doubt that 

 the talented editor of "The Saturday 

 Evening Mail" understood all this and 

 that he also understood mankind and 

 his own constituency. I am not, there- 



