More Hunting Wasps 



geometrician discovers the ellipse and the 

 other curves by examining his conic section. 

 Yes, it would be magnificent and enough to 

 add a cubit to our stature. Alas, how 

 greatly must we abate our pretensions ! The 

 reality is beyond our reach when it is only a 

 matter of following a grain of dust in its 

 fall; and we would undertake to ascend the 

 river of life and trace it to its source ! The 

 problem is a more arduous one than that 

 which algebra declines to solve. There are 

 formidable unknown quantities here, more 

 difficult to decipher than the resistances, the 

 deflections and the frictions of the pendulum. 

 Let us eliminate them, that we may more 

 easily propound the theory. 



Very well; but then my confidence in this 

 natural history which repudiates nature and 

 gives ideal conceptions precedence over reaj 

 facts is shaken. So, without seeking the op- 

 portunity, which is not my business, I take 

 it when it presents itself; I examine the 

 theory of evolution from every side ; and, as 

 that which I have been assured is the ma- 

 jestic dome of a monument capable of defy- j 

 ing the ages appears to me to be no more 

 than a bladder, I irreverently dig my pin into I 



'^' . . y 



Here is the latest dig. Adaptability to a j 

 206 



