AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



I WAS eighteen years old; I was dreaming 

 of diplomas, of a doctor's degree, of a 

 brilliant university career. To encourage 

 me and incite me to emulation, one of my 

 uncles, rather more well-informed than those 

 about him, addressed me much as follows: 



"Put your back into it, my boy! Go 

 ahead; follow the footsteps of your fellow- 

 countryman and kinsman, Henri Fabre of 

 Malaval, who has done what you want to 

 do, and has become an eminent professor 

 and a learned writer." 



It is hardly credible, but this was the first 

 time I had heard any one mention this fa- 

 mous namesake of mine, whose family, nev- 

 ertheless, used to live on the opposite slope 

 of the puech against which my tiny native 

 mas was built. 



His remark was not unheeded, and the 

 name then engraved upon my memory has 

 never been erased from it. 



A few years later, having secured my doc- 

 tor's degree, I was teaching philosophy, not 

 in the University, but in the Grand Semi- 

 naire 1 of Lyons. The problem of instinct, 

 which enters into the province of psychology, 

 led me to consult the works of J. H. Fabre, 



1 The higher clerical seminary. — B. M. 



ix 



