Note 137 — III The ‘Clerks’—The Great Betrayal (continued 2)

The Sphex. The example is given in L’Evolution Créatrice, and has had an immense success in the literary world. (It is, moreover, imaginary. See Marie Goldsmith, Psychologie Comparée, page 211.) The defence of the practical value of instinct, with the same Romantic contempt of the rationalist as in Barrès, existed with J. J. Rousseau: ‘Conscience never deceives us; it is to the soul what instinct is to the body.... Modern philosophy, which only admits what can be explained, takes care not to admit the obscure faculty called instinct which, without acquired knowledge, seems to guide animals towards some end.’ (Confession de foi du vicaire savoyard.)