THE CARP AND THE STICKLEBACK 



time, whether it is assured several times or once for all, 

 by individuals whose business for the moment it is to 

 act as reproducers ? What do differences of size and 

 length of existence matter? What do these inequalities 

 really amount to, and what is their weight in the scales 

 in which all things have been weighed since the begin- 

 ning of the ages? To tell the truth, they amount to so 

 little that we may think they hardly count, that they do 

 not exist. They seem striking to us, because we judge 

 them by our own measure, by our own existence during 

 the brief moment of time allotted to us, but in Nature, 

 perfect and complete, replacing one another along the 

 immensity of time, it is as though they never existed. 

 Individuals, actors on a fleeting stage, only count as 

 items in the series of succession of which they are a part; 

 and the Fates, the daughters of destiny, take them all in 

 turn as tiny threads in the web they are continually 

 weaving. 



Every individual, every creature animated by life, 

 is only a momentary, transitory figure. He succeeds 

 his ancestors who have disappeared; and he precedes 

 the descendants who will take his place. For the dura- 

 tion of his existence he is real, for he is distinguished 

 from what surrounds him, but he only partially possesses 

 reality, and then only in space, in relation to what is not 

 himself. As soon as he is considered in time, the 

 reality of autonomy disappears and breaks up. At his 

 first beginning, he consists of a germ which, forming a 

 part of the body of his producer, has not yet acquired 

 the independence with which it will later be endowed. 

 In his maturity, he separates from himself the germs 

 which he engenders, portions of himself which will 

 serve to fashion those who will come after him. After 

 his death, his flesh decomposes and its elements are 

 dispersed through the inanimate world, mingling with 

 those already there. From beginning to end, he never 

 has complete possession of himself. Real in space, he 

 becomes, in some way, fictitious in time, for his individu- 

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