The Life of the Grasshopper 



cate, it succeeds in attaining heights where 

 the splendours of the intellect shine forth 

 through its agency; then, shattered by the 

 effort, it relapses into the nameless thing 

 whence it started, into scattered molecules 

 which are the common origin of living things. 



At the head of the assemblers of organic 

 matter stands the plant, the animal's senior. 

 Directly or indirectly, it is to-day, as it was 

 in the geological period, the chief purveyor 

 to beings more generously endowed with life. 

 In the laboratory of its cell the food of the 

 universe at least gets its first rough prepara- 

 tion. Comes the animal, which corrects the 

 preparation, improves it and transmits it to 

 others of a higher order. Cropped grass 

 becomes mutton ; and mutton becomes human 

 flesh or Wolf-flesh, according to the con- 

 sumer. 



Among those elaborators of nourishing 

 atoms which do not create organic matter out 

 of any- and everything, starting with the 

 mineral, as the plant does, the most prolific 

 are the fishes, the first-born of vertebrate 

 animals. Ask the Cod what she does with 

 her millions of eggs. Her answer will be 

 that of the beech with its myriads of nuts, 

 or the oak with its myriads of acorns. She 



