The Tachytes 



Tachytes therefore knows where her prey's 

 nerve-centres lie; or, to speak more cor- 

 rectly, she behaves as though she knew. 



This science which is unconscious of itself 

 has not been acquired, by her and by her 

 race, through experiments perfected from 

 age to age and habits transmitted from one 

 generation to the next. It is impossible, I 

 am prepared to declare a hundred times, a 

 thousand times over, it is absolutely impos- 

 sible to experiment and to learn an art when 

 you are lost if you do not succeed at the first 

 attempt. Don't talk to me of atavism, of 

 small successes increasing by inheritance, 

 when the novice, if he misdirected his 

 weapon, would be crushed in the trap of the 

 two saws and fall a prey to the savage Man- 

 tis! The peaceable Locust, if missed, pro- 

 tests against the attack with a few kicks; the 

 carnivorous Mantis, who is in the habit of 

 feasting on Wasps far more powerful than 

 the Tachytes, would protest by eating the 

 bungler; the game would devour the hunter, 

 an excellent catch. Mantis-paralysing is a 

 most perilous trade and admits of no half- 

 successes; you have to excel in it from the 

 first, under pain of death. No, the surgical 

 art of the Tachytes is not an acquired art. 

 157 



