The Collaborators 



This chapter was to have taken the form of a 

 letter addressed to Charles Darwin, the illustrious 

 naturalist who now lies buried beside Newton in 

 Westminster Abbey. It was my task to report to 

 him the result of some experiments which he had 

 suggested to me in the course of our correspond- 

 ence: a very pleasant task, for, though facts, as I 

 see them, disincline me to accept his theories, I 

 have none the less the deepest veneration for his 

 noble character and his scientific honesty. I was 

 drafting my letter when the sad news reached 

 me : Darwin was dead : ^ after searching the mighty 

 question of origins, he was now grappling with the 

 last and darkest problem of the hereafter.^ 



This is what we need at the head of the 

 seventh chapter of the second volume of the 

 Souvenirs. Especially coming after what has 

 gone before them, these few lines shed a 

 more brilliant light upon Fabre's secret at- 

 titude toward those very thinkers whose ideas 

 he opposes most keenly than could any num- 

 ber of lectures. We have here the practical 

 exemplification of that beautiful profession 

 of faith inspired by Saint Augustine, which 

 he has recorded elsewhere: "I wage war 

 boldly upon those ideas that 1 believe untrue : 



1 Darwin died at Down, in Kent, on the 19th of April, 

 1882.— A. T. DE M. 



2 Souvenirs, 11., p. 99. 



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