The Anthrax 



day to the next, he will set up gangrene in the 

 violated mass, even as I myself do when I 

 give it a wound. For the lack of an attack- 

 ing-point prescribed for him at birth, he will 

 perish on the damaged provisions. His free- 

 dom of action will have killed him. 



Certainly, liberty is a noble attribute, even 

 in an insignificant grub ; but it also has its 

 dangers everywhere. The Anthrax escapes 

 the peril only on the condition of being, so to 

 speak, muzzled. His mouth is not a fierce 

 forceps that tears asunder; it is a sucker that 

 exhausts but does not wound. Thus restrained 

 by this safety-appliance, which changes the 

 bite into a kiss, the grub has fresh victuals 

 until it has finished growing, although it 

 knows nothing of the rules of methodical con- 

 sumption at a fixed point and in a predeter- 

 mined direction. 



The considerations which I have set forth 

 seem to me strictly logical : the Anthrax, owing 

 to the very fact that he is free to take his 

 nourishment where he pleases on the body of 

 the fostering larva, must, for his own pro- 

 tection, be made incapable of opening his vic- 

 tim's body. I am so utterly convinced of this 

 harmonious relation between the eater and the 

 eaten that I do not hesitate to set it up as a 



49 



