i82 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



science by his bold pronouncement that neither the 

 combat of spiritual powers nor the expansion or 

 contraction of the store of divine grace had anything 

 to do with the strange alteration of diurnal length ; 

 but that the cause of it lay in the Ants themselves, 

 who varied with the varying of something for which 

 he invented the word Temperature^ not in a contraction 

 or expansion of Time. 



This he announced in public, thinking that a tested 

 truth must be well received, and would of necessity 

 some day prove useful to society. But the conse- 

 quence was a storm of protest, horror, and execration. 



Did this impious creature think to overthrow the 

 holy traditions with impunity ? Did he not realize 

 that to impugn one sentence, one word, one letter 

 of the Sacred Books was to subvert the whole ? Did 

 he think that a coarse, simple, verifiable experiment 

 was to weigh against the eternal verity of subtle and 

 mysterious Revelation ? No ! and again a thousand 

 times No ! ! 



He was brought before the Wise Ants, and cross- 

 questioned by them. It was finally decided that he 

 was to abjure his heretical opinion and to recant in 

 public, reciting aloud to the four winds of heaven : 

 * the Ant is the norm of all ' — 



Mvpfirj^ Travrbs vo/xos. 



He said it. But Truth stirred within him, and 

 under his breath he muttered * Eppur si muove . . .' 



