REVERENCE FOR LIFE. 
335 
Close daily observation, initiating us into their ways and habits, de¬ 
veloped in our minds a sentiment which animated our study, but also 
complicated it,—respect for their persons and lives. 
“ What say you ? An ant’s existence ? Nature holds them cheaply, 
renews them incessantly, prodigalizes lives, sacrifices them to one 
another.” 
Yes, but because she makes them. She bestows life and withdraws 
it; has the secret of their destinies, and that of the compensations in 
the course of possible progress. But as for us, we have no power over 
them, except to make them suffer. 
This is a grave reflection. We are not talking here of any childish 
sensibility. On the contrary, neither children nor men of science 
cherish any such feeling. But a man—man accustomed to reason with 
himself and estimate his acts—will not lightly deprive any creature of 
that gift of life which it is utterly out of his power to confer on the 
most insignificant. 
This consideration impressed us strongly. And at first a person, a 
woman, more impressionable and. more scrupulous than myself, who 
had come hither with the design of making a collection of the insects 
of Fontainebleau, hesitated, deferred the task; and then, having interro¬ 
gated her conscience, felt compelled to renounce it. Without uttering a 
word of censure upon scientific collections, which are absolutely indis¬ 
pensable, it is certain that we ought not to find a pastime in death. 
Note that many of these creatures are much less important in form and 
