THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 67 



creatures about us. Take but the example of so 

 commonplace a creature as the wasp. In his book, 

 "The Hunting Wasp," published in an English 

 translation, the great Catholic scientist, J. Henri 

 Fabre, shows how the social wasp, in providing 

 food for her young, skilfully paralyzes the grey 

 worm by selecting about nine out of an indefinite 

 number of points into which her stiletto must be 

 thrust to secure her prey. He then makes plain 

 the absurdity of postulating that such mastery 

 could be acquired by chance and handed down 

 by heredity. The credulity required for the ac- 

 ceptance of such a statement has nevertheless been 

 made a fundamental postulate of our modern 

 popular science. The wasp, sanely observes Fa- 

 bre, excels in her art because she is born to fol- 

 low it, is endowed with the tools and with the 

 knack of using them. 



And this gift is original, perfect from the outset: the past 

 has added 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 privilege. What an 

 immense advantage it would be to humanity if we were less 

 liable to see the worker succeeded by the idler, the man of 

 talent by the idiot! Ah, why has not protoplasm, evolving by 

 its own energy from one being into another, reserved until 

 it came to us a little of that wonderful power which it has 

 bestowed so lavishly upon the insect! The answer is that 

 apparently, in this world, cellular evolution is not everything. 



For these among many other reasons, I reject the modern 

 theory of instinct. I see in it no more than an ingenious game 



