The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



was inexpugnable, and was not without hope 

 of converting Darwin by what appeared, to 

 him to be the evidence of the facts. 



Nowhere does the theory of evolution come full 

 tilt against so immovable an obstacle. Darwin, a 

 true judge, did not fail to realise this. He greatly 

 dreaded the problem of the instincts. My first re- 

 sults in particular had left him anxious. If he had 

 known the tactics of the Hairy Ammophila, the 

 Mantis-hunting Tachytus, the Philanthus apivorus, 

 the CalicurguS, and other predatory insects which 

 have since been investigated, his anxiety, I believe, 

 would have become a frank avowal of his inability 

 to get instinct to enter the world of his formula. 

 Alas! the philosopher of Down left us when the 

 discussion was only just beginning, with experiment 

 to fall back upon, a method superior to all argu- 

 ments. The little that I had published at that 

 period left him still some hope of explanation. In 

 his eyes instinct is always an acquired habit. 



We have already mentioned Fabre's rela- 

 tions with Moquin-Tandon, Dufour, Pasteur, 

 and Duruy. Other names might be added 

 to complete the list of his friends, or the cor- 

 respondents whom he succeeded in interest- 

 ing in entomology and admitting more or 

 less to participation in his researches. 1 We 



1 Souvenirs, I., pp. 188, 189; II., pp. 103; VI., pp. 25, 166, 

 203; vii., pp. 8, 9, 57, 161, etc. 



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