stative scale.

There remains touch, the far-spreading passive sense common to all
live flesh that quivers under the goad of pain. The sensitive schedule
of the Cerambyx-grub, therefore, is limited to taste and touch, both
exceedingly obtuse. This almost brings us to Condillac's statue. The
imaginary being of the philosopher had one sense only, that of smell,
equal in delicacy to our own; the real being, the ravager of the oak,
has two, inferior, even when put together, to the former, which so
plainly perceived the scent of a rose and distinguished it so clearly
from any other. The real case will bear comparison with the
fictitious.

What can be the psychology of a creature possessing such a powerful
digestive organism combined with such a feeble set of senses? A vain
wish has often come to me in my dreams: it is to be able to think, for
a few minutes, with the crude brain of my Dog, to see the world with
the faceted eyes of a Gnat. How things would change in appearance!
They would change much more if interpreted by the intellect of the
grub. What have the lessons of touch and taste contributed to that
rudimentary receptacle of impressions? Very little; almost nothing.
The animal knows that the best bits possess an astringent flavour;
that the sides of a passage not carefully planed are painful to the
skin. This is the utmost limit of its acquired wisdom. In comparison,
the statue with the sensitive nostrils was a marvel of knowledge, a
paragon too generously endowed by its inventor. It remembered,
compared, judged, reasoned: does the drowsy, digesting paunch
remember? Does it compare? Does it reason? I defined the
Capricorn-grub as a bit of an intestine that crawls about. The
undeniable accuracy of this definition provides me with my answer: the
grub has the aggregate of sense-impressions that a bit of an intestine
may hope to have.

And this nothing-at-all is capable of marvellous acts of foresight;
this belly, which knows hardly anything of the present, sees very
clearly into the future. Let us take an illustration on this curious
subject. For three years on end, the larva wanders about in the thick
of the trunk; it goes up, goes down, turns to this side and that; it
leaves one vein for another of better flavour, but without moving too
far from the inner depths, where the temperature is milder and greater
safety reigns. A day is at hand, a dangerous day for the recluse
obliged to quit its excellent retreat and fa