THE SACRED BEETLE 55 



equal to that of a revolution of the moon, during which 

 period the offspring of the Scarab quickens. On the 

 twenty-ninth day, which the insect knows to be that of 

 the conjunction of the sun and moon and of the birth 

 of the world, it opens the ball and throws it into the 

 water. From this ball issue animals that are Scarabs." 



Let us dismiss the revolution of the moon, the con- 

 junction of the sun and moon, the birth of the world 

 and other astrological absurdities, but remember this : 

 the twenty-eight days of incubation required by the ball 

 underground, the twenty -eight days during which the 

 Scarab is born to life. Let us also remember the indis- 

 pensable intervention of water to bring the insect out 

 of its burst shell. These are precise facts, falling within 

 the domain of true science. Are they imaginary ? Are 

 they real ? The question deserves investigation. 



Antiquity knew nothing of the wonders of the meta- 

 morphosis. To antiquity, a grub was a worm born of 

 corruption. The poor creature had no future to lift it 

 from its abject condition : as worm it appeared and as 

 worm it had to disappear. It was not a mask under 

 which a superior form of life was being elaborated ; it was 

 a definite entity, supremely contemptible and doomed 

 soon to return to the rottenness that gave it birth. 



To the Egyptian author, therefore, the Scarab's larva 

 was unknown. And if, by chance, he had had before his 

 eyes the shell of the insect inhabited by a fat, big-bellied 

 worm, he would never have suspected in the foul and 

 ugly animal the sober beauty of the future Scarab. 

 According to the ideas of the time, ideas long maintained, 

 the sacred insect had neither father nor mother : an 

 error excusable in the midst of the simplicity of the 



