The Cricket: the Eggs 



Dog utilizes the thumb that hangs limp and 

 lifeless at the back of his paw. 



Sometimes, for reasons of symmetry, the 

 walls of a house are painted with imitation 

 windows to balance the other windows, which 

 are real. This is done out of respect for 

 order, the supreme condition of the beau- 

 tiful. In the same way, life has its sym- 

 metries, its repetitions of a general proto- 

 type. When abolishing an organ that has 

 ceased to be employed, it leaves vestiges of 

 it to maintain the primitive arrangement. 



The Dog's rudimentary thumb predicates 

 the five-fingered hand that characterizes the 

 higher animals; the Cricket's wing-stumps 

 are evidence that the insect would normally 

 be capable of flight; the moult undergone on 

 the threshold of the egg is reminiscent of the 

 tight-fitting wrapper needed for the laborious 

 exit of the Locustidae born underground. 

 They are so many symmetrical superfluities, 

 so many remains of a law that has fallen 

 into disuse but never been abrogated. 



As soon as he is deprived of his delicate 

 tunic, the young Cricket, pale all over, al- 

 most white, begins to battle with the soil 

 overhead. He hits out with his mandibles; 

 he sweeps aside and kicks behind him the 

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