Preface 



the life lavished upon the abysses of death, 

 without counting the no less vast, but so to 

 speak more human problems which, among 

 infinite others, are inscribed within the range, 

 if not within the grasp, of our intelligence: 

 parthenogenesis; the prodigious geometry 

 of the wasps and bees; the logarithmic spiral 

 of the Snail ; the antennary sense ; the miracu- 

 lous force which, in absolute isolation, with- 

 out the possible introduction of anything 

 from the outside, increases the volume of the 

 Minotaurus' egg ten-fold, where it lies, and, 

 during seven to nine months, nourishes with 

 an invisible and spiritual food, not the leth- 

 argy, but the active life of the Scorpion and 

 of the young of the Lycosa and the Clotho 

 Spider. He does not attempt to explain them 

 by one of those generally-acceptable theories 

 such as that of evolution, which merely shifts 

 the ground of the difficulty and which, I may 

 mention in passing, emerges from these 

 volumes in a somewhat sorry plight, after 

 being sharply confronted with incontestable 

 facts. 



Waiting for chance or a god to enlighten 

 us, he is able, in the presence of the un- 

 known, to preserve that great religious and 



33 



