Note 18 — Chapter XX · FABRE’S WRITINGS (CONTINUED)

So long as its circumstances are normal, the insect’s actions are calculated most rationally in view of the object to be attained. What could be more logical, for instance, than the devices employed by the Hunting Wasp when paralysing her prey so that it may keep fresh for her larva, while in no wise imperilling that larva’s safety? It is pre-eminently rational; we ourselves could think of nothing better; and yet the Wasp’s action is not prompted by reason. If she thought out her surgery, she would be our superior. It will never occur to anybody that the creature is able, in the smallest degree, to account for its skilful vivisections. Therefore, so long as it does not depart from the path mapped out for it, the insect can perform the most sagacious actions without entitling us in the least to attribute these to the dictates of reason.18