The Hunting Wasps 



of times a day; he goes to work with reflec- 

 tion. It is his business. Does this hfelong 

 practice create a transmissible habit? Are 

 the sons, the grandsons, the great-grandsons 

 any the wiser, without instruction? No, the 

 thing has to start afresh each time. Man is 

 not predisposed by nature to this butchery. 

 If, on her side, the Wasp excels in her art, 

 it is because she is born to follow it, because 

 she is endowed not only with tools, but also 

 with the knack of using them. And this gift 

 is original, perfect from the outset: the past 

 has added nothing to it, the future will add 

 nothing to it. As it was, so it is and will be. 

 If you see in it naught but an acquired habit, 

 which heredity hands down and improves, at 

 least explain to us why man, who represents 

 the highest stage in the evolution of your 

 primitive plasma, is deprived of the like privi- 

 lege. A paltry insect bequeathes its skill to 

 its offspring; and man cannot. What an im- 

 mense advantage it would be to humanity if 

 we were less liable to see the worker suc- 

 ceeded by the idler, the man of talent by the 

 idiot! Ah, why has not protoplasm, evol- 

 ving by its own energy from one being Into 

 another, reserved until it came to us a little 

 of that wonderful power which it has be- 

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