The Life of the Caterpillar 



harmony. We need dissimilarities, sounds 

 loud and soft, deep and shrill; we need even 

 discords which, by their harshness, throw into 

 relief the sweetness of the chords. In the 

 same way, human societies are harmonious 

 only with the aid of contraries. If the dreams 

 of our levellers could be realized, we should 

 sink to the monotony of the caterpillar so- 

 cieties; art, science, progress ajid the lofty 

 flights of the imagination w^ould slumber in- 

 definitely in the dead calm of mediocrity. 



Besides, if this general levelling were ef- 

 fected, we should still be very far from com- 

 munism. To achieve that, we should have 

 to do away with the family, as the caterpil- 

 lars and Plato teach us; we should need 

 abundance of food obtained without any ef- 

 fort. So long as a mouthful of bread is diffi- 

 cult to acquire, demanding an industry and 

 labour of which we are not all equally capable, 

 so long as the family remains the sacred rea- 

 son for our foresight, so long will the 

 generous theory of all for each and each for 

 all be absolutely impracticable. 



And then should we gain by abolishing the 

 struggle for the daily bread of ourselves and 

 those dependent on us? It is very doubtful. 



56 



