The Anthrax 



the only condition imposed: I find a second, 

 which is no less essential. The substance of 

 the fostering larva must be sufficiently fluid to 

 ooze through the unbroken skin under the 

 action of the sucker. Well, the necessary 

 fluidity is realized as the time of the meta- 

 morphosis draws near. When they wished 

 Medea to restore Pelias to the vigour of 

 youth, his daughters cut the old king's body to 

 pieces and boiled it in a cauldron, for there can 

 be no new existence without a prior dissolu- 

 tion. We must pull down before we can re- 

 build; the analysis of death is the first step 

 towards the synthesis of life. The substance 

 of the grub that is to be transformed into a 

 Bee begins, therefore, by disintegrating and 

 dissolving into a fluid broth. The materials 

 of the future insect are obtained by a general 

 recasting. Even as the founder puts his old 

 bronzes into the melting-pot in order after- 

 wards to cast them in a mould whence the 

 metal will issue in a different shape, so life 

 liquefies the grub, a rnere digesting-machine, 

 now thrown aside, and out of its running mat- 

 ter produces the perfect insect, Bee, Butterfly 

 or Beetle, the final manifestation of the living 

 creature. 



Let us open a Chalicodoma-grub under the 

 51 



