LIFE AND WORK OF FABRE — BOUVIER. 595 



instinct that apprehends nothing and forgets nothing, the instinct 

 unalterable by time." 



In drawing his conclusions this way Fabre was dominated by the 

 general rule and did not note exceptions. In living nature the habits 

 of insects are the results of a series of acts which are mechanically 

 linked, and the deviations of the mechanism are much less striking 

 than the mechanism itself. Not that the deviations have escaped 

 the notice of the observer ; he was far too wise not to perceive them, 

 and there was no one more keenly interested in them than was he; 

 but he subordinated them to the general rule and did not give them 

 the importance that most zoologists have since justly accorded to 

 them. In fact, though widely differing from Weismann, he be- 

 lieved, as Weismann did, in the innate character of habits and agreed 

 with him that habits acquired in the course of the individual ex- 

 istence are not hereditary. It should always be noted that Weis- 

 man, the convinced evolutionist, admits the changing of habits by 

 germinal mutations, while Fabre, the enemy of hypotheses, shunned 

 all explanation on this point and, with respect to the origin of habits, 

 reverted to " universal Iniowledge on which all depends and all lives." 

 He left the question open and would further say, like Montaigne: 

 " I do not know." 



Moreover, he was a man of great sincerity, and though he severely 

 criticized the idea of evolution, nevertheless he brought out many 

 facts that can be assigned their place to support that idea. The 

 larvse of hunting wasps would be incapable of touching with- 

 out danger a prey different from that served to them, and Fabre 

 observed that he could successfully serve "the larvae of the hairy 

 Ammophila with an adult black cricket, accepted, moreover, as 

 willingly as its natural game, the caterpillar." He did not be- 

 lieve at all in the individual education of insects, and he showed us 

 the triungulin of the Sitaris, at first seizing, like a hair of the bee, 

 the slender straw offered to it, then, acting from experience, refusing 

 to accept this ruse. Upon these observations and many other similar 

 ones he founded his thesis. 



" Pure instinct alone," he said, " would leave the insect disarmed, 

 in constant conflict with circumstances. * * * In this confused 

 melee, a guide is needed. * * * This guide the insect certainly 

 possesses in a marked degree. This is the second domam of its 

 psychological nature. Here it is conscious and perfects itself by 

 experience. Not daring to call this aptitude rudimentary intelli- 

 gence, a name too broad for it, I shall term it discernment." Here 

 we are very near the most modern ideas, and very far from the 

 German mechanist school which regards insects as simple reflex 

 machines. 



