The Locusts: their Organ of Sound 



He also, surely, must have felt the prick of 

 necessity for ages and ages ; during his la- 

 borious tumbles amid the broken stones, he 

 must have felt the advantage that it would 

 be for him to be relieved of his weight by 

 means of wing-power; and all the endeavours 

 of his organism, striving to achieve a better 

 lot, have not yet succeeded in spreading 

 bladewise his incipient wings. 



If we accept your theories, under the same 

 conditions of urgent necessity, diet, climate 

 and habits, some are successful and manage 

 to fly, others fail and remain clumsy pedes- 

 trians. Short of resting satisfied with words 

 and passing off chalk for cheese, I abandon 

 the explanations offered. Sheer ignorance 

 is far preferable, for it prejudges nothing. 



But let us leave this backward one who 

 is a stage behind his kinsmen, no one knows 

 why. Anatomy has its throwbacks, its halts, 

 its sudden leaps, all of which defy our curi- 

 osity. In the presence of the unfathomable 

 problem of origins, the best thing is to bow 

 in all humility and pass on. 



377 



