THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION 247 



In spite of the unlucky introduction of the cellar, I 

 remain none the less struck by his serene assurance. He 

 knows nothing of the transformation of insects ; he has 

 just seen a cocoon for the first time and learnt that there 

 is something inside that cocoon, the rough draft of the 

 moth that shall be ; he is ignorant of what is known to 

 the meanest school-boy of our southern parts ; and this 

 novice, whose artless questions surprise me so greatly, is 

 about to revolutionize the hygiene of the silk-worm 

 nurseries. In the same way, he will revolutionize medi- 

 cine and general hygiene. 



His weapon is thought, heedless of details and soaring 

 over the whole question. What cares he for metamor- 

 phoses, larvae, nymphse, cocoons, pupaa, chrysalises and 

 the thousand and one little secrets of entomology ! For the 

 purposes of his problem, perhaps, it is just as well to be 

 ignorant of all that. Ideas retain their independence 

 and their daring flight more easily ; movements are freer, 

 when released from the leading-strings of the known. 



Encouraged by the magnificent example of the cocoons 

 rattling in Pasteur's astonished ears, I have made it a 

 rule to adopt the method of ignorance in my investigations 

 into instincts. I read very little. Instead of turning the 

 pages of books, an expensive proceeding quite beyond 

 my means, instead of consulting other people, I persist 

 in obstinately interviewing my subject until I succeed 

 in making him speak. I know nothing. So much the 

 better : my queries will be all the freer, now in this direc- 

 tion, now in the opposite, according to the lights obtained. 

 And if, by chance, I do open a book, I take care to 

 leave a pigeon-hole in my mind wide open to doubt ; 

 for the soil which I am clearing bristles with weeds and 

 brambles. 



