Note 17 — Chapter XX · FABRE’S WRITINGS (CONTINUED)

But far from invalidating the conclusion drawn from the obvious stupidity of the insect even in the actions which are its specialty, the science and wisdom of instinct afford it a striking confirmation. The very “slightest glimmer of intelligence” would suffice to make the insect do what it does not and leave undone what it does even within the circumference of its attributions. If it is plainly devoid of this glimmer, how much more plainly is it devoid of that “splendour of intelligence” which the “miracles” of instinct would require!17 To sum up, the insect sins too greatly by excess and by defect in its instinctive actions to justify our attributing to it an understanding of these actions; we are indeed compelled absolutely to deny it any such understanding. It does at once too much and too little; too much for an insect’s intelligence and too little for any intelligence whatever. Everything is against it; its knowledge as much as its ignorance; its logic as much as its inconsequences.