Now whence did this industrious labourer derive his self-abnegation and his ardour for the welfare of his young? Men tell us that he acquired them by a slow progress from middling to good, from good to excellent. Fortuitous circumstances, hostile one day, favourable the next, have taught him what he knows. He has learnt, as man does, by experience: he too develops, progresses and improves himself. In his little Dung-beetle brain, the lessons of the past leave lasting impressions which, matured by time, ripen into more considered actions. Necessity is the supreme inspirer of the instincts. Spurred by necessity, the animal is its own artisan; by its own energies it has made itself as we know it, with its implements and its trade. Its habits, its capacity and dexterity are integrals of infinite minuteness acquired on the illimitable path of time. Such is the argument of the theorists, an argument sufficiently imposing to allure any independent mind, did not the empty resonance of words usurp the full sonority of reality. Let us question the Minotaur about all this. To be sure, he will not reveal to us the origin of instinct; he will leave the problem as obscure as ever; but he will at least be able to cast a glimmer into some little corner; and any light, however faint, even the flickering light of a taper, must be welcome in the dark tavern into which the animal leads us. The Minotaur works exclusively with Sheep-droppings; for the purposes of his family, he needs them dry, toughened to the consistency of horn by long exposure to the sun. This choice seems very strange, when we remember that other stercoral collectors insist upon fresh products. The Sacred Beetle, the Copris, the Onthophagus: [43] not one of these, nor any of the others, cares for this sort of provender. All, whether large or small, whether modellers of pears or manufacturers of sausages, absolutely require plastic materials, retaining their full flavour. The trident-bearer needs the pastoral olive, the Sheep’s sugar-plum drained of all its juices. There is room in this world for tastes of every kind; the wisest thing is not to discuss them. Nevertheless, one would like to know why, when he is surrounded by such abundance of tender and succulent victuals, deriving from the Sheep or elsewhere, the three-pronged Dung-beetle selects what the others scornfully refuse. If he has not an innate predilection for this diet, how did he come to throw over the excellent, in which he had the right to share with the rest, and adopt the inferior, which is not employed elsewhere?