The Professor: Avignon 



11 with the supposition of an animal abso- 

 lutely dead, the hypothesis of a true corpse 

 rendered incorruptible by the effect of a 

 liquid preservative." He was thus led to 

 conclude that the insect was not dead, but 

 only benumbed and reduced to a state of im- 

 mobility. 



Fascinated and intrigued by Dufour's dis- 

 covery, Fabre wished to see the process for 

 himself, and as a result he made the first and 

 the finest of his own entomological discov- 

 eries, which he was later on to enrich by more 

 precise and more remarkable details. 



But at the same time he was forced to re- 

 alise how incomplete and superficial were the 

 observations of the man whom he neverthe- 

 less revered as the first among his masters. 



How often was he to find occasion for re- 

 vising the statements of his predecessors! 

 They were not merely incomplete; they were 

 often erroneous, even when they had the 

 greatest names to recommend them. 



Must we then ignore all that has been said 

 and written and wholly repudiate the inher- 

 itance of the centuries and the scientists of 

 the past? Heaven preserve us from such 

 stupidity! But while it would not be rea- 

 sonable or even possible to make a clean 

 sweep of all that has been acquired by our 



157 



