alm advent of death. With wings
slackly quivering, softly they die and drop from the wires. Next day,
both corpses are remarkably lax; the segments of the abdomen separate
and gape at the least touch. Remove the hairs and you shall see that
the skin, which was white, has turned brown and is changing to black.
Corruption is quickly doing its work.

This would be a good opportunity to speak of bacteria and cultures. I
shall do nothing of the sort. On the hazy borderland of the visible and
the invisible, the microscope inspires me with suspicion. It so easily
replaces the eye of reality by the eye of imagination; it is so ready to
oblige the theorists with just what they want to see. Besides, supposing
the microbe to be found, if that were possible, the question would be
changed, not solved. For the problem of the collapse of the structure
through the fact of a prick there would be substituted another no less
obscure: how does the said microbe bring about that collapse? In what
way does it go to work? Where lies its power?

Then what explanation shall I give of the facts which I have just set
forth? Why, none, absolutely none, seeing that I do not know of any. As
I am unable to do better, I will confine myself to a pair of comparisons
or images, which may serve as a brief resting place for the mind on the
dark billows of the unknown.

All of us, as children, have amused ourselves with the game of "card
friars." A number of cards, as many as possible, are bent lengthwise
into a semi-cylinder. They are placed on a table, one behind the
other, in a winding row, the spaces in which are suitably disposed.
The performance pleases the eye by its curved lines and its regular
arrangement. It possesses order, which is a condition of all animated
matter. You give a little tap to the first card. It falls and overturns
the second, which, in the same way, topsy-turvies the third; and so on,
right to the end of the row. In less than no time, the capsizing wave
spreads and the handsome edifice is shattered. Order is succeeded by
disorder, I might almost say, by death. What was needed thus to upset
the procession of friars? A very, very slight first push, out of all
proportion to the toppled mass.

Again, take a glass balloon containing a solution of alum supersaturated
by heat. It is closed, during the process of boiling, with a cork and
is then allowed to cool. The contents remain fluid and limpid for an
indefinite period. Mobility i