DARWIN 



progressive evolution. The wasp must have gone 

 through this exact procedure with unerring accuracy 

 the first time or the species would have ended; it can- 

 not be accounted for by chance ; it is a complete mys- 

 tery. The evolutionist who reads Fabre's works with 

 a simple, open mind and not biased by a precon- 

 ceived idea of natural selection, will rise from his 

 task with the conviction that the instincts and the 

 habits of insects, at least, cannot be explained by any 

 hereditary development of useful traits. Then let him 

 read Maeterlinck's preface and he will humbly admit 

 that the poet has seen more deeply, and more truly 

 than he, into the mysteries of the strange world of 

 insects. We, with our logical brains, are absolutely 

 baffled by this world of little creatures; their seem- 

 ingly futile actions and rudimentary minds; their in- 

 tricate apparatus of generation; their extraordinary 

 and weird methods of averting wholesale slaughter; 

 the community life of ants and bees; all these make 

 a picture which must be the despair of the natural- 

 ist to explain by any rational process. 



It is safe to say that there is scarcely an example 

 cited by a biologist in support of natural selection 

 which another biologist does not contradict either by 

 showing that the example itself is at fault or else by 

 citing a parallel case which opposes the theory. Even 

 the basic principle itself, the struggle for existence 

 as a predominating factor in organic life, is now at- 

 tacked on all sides. Many naturalists, especially the 



C 231 ] 



