Note 19 — Chapter XX · FABRE’S WRITINGS (CONTINUED)

I consign to the meditations of philosophy these five makers of spherical conserves—[he is speaking of the Scarabæi]—and their numerous rivals. I consign to them these inventors of the spherical box, of greater volume and smaller surface, for provisions liable to dry up, and I ask them how such logical inspirations, such rational provisions, could unfold themselves in the murky intellect of the insect.… The work of the pill-makers propounds a grave problem to him who is capable of reflection. It confronts us with this alternative: either we must attribute to the flat cranium of the Dung-beetle the notable honour of having solved for itself the geometrical problem of its conserve, or we must refer it to a harmony ruling all things beneath the eye of an Intelligence that, knowing all, has foreseen all.… If the Rhynchites and its emulators in defensive means against the perils of asphyxia have taught themselves their trade; if they are really the children of their works, do not let us hesitate … let us recognise them as engineers capable of winning our diplomas and degrees; let us proclaim the microcephalic Weevil a powerful thinker, a wonderful inventor. You dare not go to these lengths; you prefer to have recourse to the chances of hazard. Ah, but what a wretched resource is hazard, when such rational contrivances are in question! One might as well throw into the air the characters of the alphabet and expect to see them, on falling, form certain lines selected from a poem! Instead of loading our minds with such tortuous ideas, how much simpler and more truthful to say: “A sovereign Order rules over matter.” This is what the Sloe Weevil tells us in its humility!19