ar idea is mistaken; antiquity
too is mistaken, as witness the "Georgics," which make the putrid
remains of a sacrificed Bull give birth to a swarm; but the Wasp makes
no mistake. In her eyes, which see farther than ours, the Eristalis is
an odious Dipteron, a lover of corruption, and nothing more.

CHAPTER 14. OBJECTIONS AND REJOINDERS.

No idea of any scope can begin its soaring flight but straightway the
curmudgeons are after it, eager to break its wings and to stamp the
wounded thing under foot. My discovery of the surgical methods that give
the Hunting Wasps their preserved foodstuffs has undergone the common
rule. Let theories be discussed, by all means: the realm of the
imagination is an untilled domain, in which every one is free to plant
his own conceptions. But realities are not open to discussion. It is a
bad policy to deny facts with no more authority than one's wish to find
them untrue. No one that I know of has impugned by contrary observations
what I have so long been saying about the anatomical instinct of the
Wasps that hunt their prey; instead, I am met with arguments. Mercy on
us! First use your eyes and then you shall have leave to argue! And, to
persuade people to use their eyes, I mean to reply, since we have time
to spare, to the objections which have been or may be raised. Of course,
I pass over in silence those in which childish disparagement shows its
nose too plainly.

The sting, I am told, is directed at one point rather than another
because that is the only vulnerable point. The insect cannot choose what
wound it will inflict; it stings where it must. Its wonderful operative
method is the necessary result of the victim's structure. Let us first,
if we attach any importance to lucidity, come to an understanding about
the word "vulnerable." Do you mean by this that the point or rather
points wounded by the sting are the only points at which a lesion will
suddenly cause either death or paralysis? If so, I share your opinion;
not only do I share it, but I was the first to proclaim it. My whole
thesis is contained in that. Yes, a hundred times yes, the points
wounded are the only vulnerable points; they are even very vulnerable;
they are the only points which lend themselves to the infliction of
sudden death or else paralysis, according to the operator's intention.

But this is not how you understand the matter: you mean accessible to
the sting, in a word, penetrable. Here we part company.