356 The Life of the Spider 



would the chick fare if it were expected, for 

 seven or eight months without stopping, to 

 stand on its feet, to run about, to flee in the face 

 of danger ? Where would it stow the necessary 

 reserves for such an amount of work ? 



The little Spider, in her turn, is a minute 

 particle of no size at all. Where could she 

 store enough fuel to keep up mobility during so 

 long a period ? The imagination shrinks in 

 dismay before the thought of an atom endowed 

 with inexhaustible motive oils. 



We must needs, therefore, appeal to the 

 immaterial, in particular to heat-rays coming 

 from the outside and converted into move- 

 ment by the organism. This is nutrition of 

 energy reduced to its simplest expression : the 

 motive heat, instead of being extracted from 

 the food, is utilized direct, as supplied by the sun, 

 which is the seat of all hfe. Inert matter has 

 disconcerting secrets, as witness radium ; living 

 matter has secrets of its own, which are more 

 wonderful still. Nothing tells us that science 

 will not one day turn the suspicion suggested by 

 the Spider into an established truth and a 

 fundamental theory of physiology. 



