viii The Life of the Spider 



One would think that it was born of some comet 

 that had lost its course and died demented in 

 space. In vain does it seize upon life with an 

 authority, a fecundity unequalled here below ; 

 we cannot accustom ourselves to the idea that 

 it is a thought of that nature of whom we fondly 

 believe ourselves to be the privileged children 

 and probably the ideal to which all the earth's 

 efforts tend. Only the infinitely small dis- 

 concerts us still more greatly ; but what, in 

 reahty, is the infinitely small other than an 

 insect which our eyes do not see ? There is, 

 no doubt, in this astonishment and lack of under- 

 standing a certain instinctive and profound 

 uneasiness inspired by those existences incom- 

 parably better-armed, better-equipped than our 

 own, by those creatures made up of a sort of 

 compressed energy and activity in whom we 

 suspect our most mysterious adversaries, our 

 ultimate rivals and, perhaps, our successors. 



3 



But it is time, under the conduct of an admir- 

 able guide, to penetrate behind the scenes of 

 our fairy play and to study at close quarters 



