PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



indifference, it is of an absolute equity. But the sensi- 

 bility of a balance is of a single order, single dimension; 

 the sensibility of nature is infinite, to all actions and re- 

 actions. Whether the strong devour the weak, or the 

 weak the strong, there is no compensation save in our 

 human illusion; in reality one life is enlarged at the ex- 

 pense of another life, in one case as in the other, the 

 total energy has been neither diminished nor augmented. 

 There is neither strong, nor weak, there is a level 

 which tends to remain constant. Our sentimentalism 

 makes us see dramas where nothing occurs more dis- 

 turbing than the general facts of nutrition. One may 

 however look at these facts a little more closel>, and 

 then the parity of animal organism and the human organ- 

 ism will lead us to qualify as cruel, certain acts which 

 would deserve this title if committed by man. One must 

 say cruelty in order to understand it oneself; it is also 

 necessary to remember that this cruelty is unconscious, 

 that it is not felt by the devouring animal, that no 

 element of ill-will enters into its act, and that man him- 

 self, the judge, in no way deprives himself of eating 

 live creatures when they are better raw than cooked, 

 living than dead. 



A philanthe, sort of wasp, catches a bee to feed its 

 larvae; while carrying the prey to his nest, he presses 

 the belly, sucks the bee, empties it of all its honey. But 

 at the entrance of the nest a mantis is waiting, its double- 

 saw pf an arm is unfolded, the philanthe is nipped in 

 passing. And one sees the mantis gnawing the belly of 

 the philanthe while the philanthe continues sucking the 

 bee's belly. And the mantis is so voracious that you 

 181 



