95 the moth and the candle 



ness or seeming shrewdness of many parasites, he spoke of 

 "le savant brigandage de la vie" — the expert criminaHty of 

 hfe. And he never faced the problem which seems to arise 

 when one places the responsibility for such a villainous 

 system of exploitation directly upon a personal God. But 

 he never wavered. The wonders of instinct confirmed his 

 Cathohc theology as conclusively as they confirm the athe- 

 ism of many mechanists. 



Somewhere along the line of this argument, the less 

 trusting of my readers may have wanted to raise doubts 

 not so much concerning the argument itself as concerning 

 the alleged facts upon which it is based. Does Pronuba 

 really do any of these things it is said to? 



After all, entomologists are always coming up with 

 wonders about ants, bees and what not. Laymen seldom 

 see them with their own eyes and if by any chance they 

 take an hour off to look, they are more hkely than not to 

 see nothing remarkable. Insects take their time. For long 

 periods they behave in what seems like a completely wit- 

 less fashion — as Mark Twain discovered when he con- 

 vinced himself that the ant and his extraordinary reputa- 

 tion for sagacity was a complete fraud. 



The Mr. Riley who first told the world about Pronuba 

 was a distinguished entomologist. He had the confidence 

 of his professional brethren and textbook after textbook 

 has repeated his tale. But is it just possible that he was 

 overenthusiastic? How many other people have w^atched 

 the performance and can vouch for it from their own ex- 

 perience? 



Well, I confess that the shadow of such doubts crossed 

 my own mind. Of the various references to Pronuba with 



