90 
LIFE IN DEATH. 
In this, then, do we not discern, as it were, a first glimpse of per¬ 
sonality ? 
The individual stands out from the mass. He shows himself all 
at once admirably provided with the instruments necessary for the 
support and sustenance of the individual existence. He is born greedy 
and absorbent. But this very absorbingness is exactly the service 
which Nature expects of him. It is his mission to purify and disen¬ 
cumber the world; to clear it of morbid or extinct animal matter, 
which acts as an obstacle to the growth of life; to save the latter 
from the consequences of its excessive fecundity, the danger of its 
abundance. 
No other being, as we shall prove, exercises so great an influence 
upon our globe; no other throws itself into the condition of general 
existence with so vital an energy. But this extraordinary strength, in 
such disproportion to the size, bulk, and weight of the insect, is subject 
to a severe law; the rapid, absolute, and complete renewal, at each 
generation, of the individual. 
Love implies death. To engender and to beget is to die. He who 
is born, by the very act of his birth kills. 
This is a sentence common to all beings, but carried out upon none 
more literally than upon the insect. 
In the first place, it is death for the father to love. It is indis¬ 
pensable that he should surrender all his powers, and exhaust the 
best part of his vitality; that he should perish in himself, to revive in 
him to whom he shall have transmitted his germ of resurrection. 
And for the mother, too, in most of the insect species, the condem¬ 
nation is the same. She will love, give birth, and speedily die. Love 
for her shall not have its prize and recompense. She shall not see her 
sons. She shall not enjoy the consolations of death in seeing herself 
survive in her image. 
A great and harsh difference between this mother and the mothers 
of superior animals ! The woman—or the female of the mammal—as a 
rule cherishes in her own body her beloved treasure, warms it with 
her own flame, and feeds it with her love. How envious would be the 
insect-mother, if she knew of this supreme maternal happiness! But 
