The Sacred Beetle and Others 



completing and improving on my first at- 

 tempt, would behold the extinction of those 

 antiquated old things. Why should the 

 lump on my back wither purposeless ? Why 

 should my endeavour, repeated year after 

 year for centuries, never achieve the pro- 

 mised result? " 



Listen to me, O ambitious one! [The 

 theorists, it Is true, declare that every casual 

 acquisition, however trifling, is handed down 

 and increases if it be profitable; but don't 

 rely overmuch on that assertion. I do not 

 doubt the advantages which you might gain 

 from a little surplus ornament. What I do 

 very much doubt is the efl'icacity of time and 

 environment as an evolutionary factor. You 

 will be well-advised to believe that, born in 

 the dim and distant past with a transient 

 callosity, you are continuing and will continue 

 to be born with that rudimentary excrescence 

 without any chance of fixing it, hardening it 

 into a horn or obtaining an additional deco- 

 ration for your wedding-garment. 



Be we men or Dung-beetles, we are all 

 created in the Image of an unalterable proto- 

 type: the changing conditions of life change 

 us slightly on the surface but never In the 

 framework of our being. The verdigris of 

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