By a strange contradiction, characteristic of the instinctive faculties, profound knowledge is associated with an ignorance no less profound.... For instinct nothing is difficult, so long as the action does not diverge from the immutable cycle laid down for the insect; for instinct, again, nothing is easy if the action has to diverge from the paths habitually followed. The instinct which amazes us, which terrifies us by its supreme lucidity, astonishes us by its stupidity a moment later, when confronted with the simplest situation which is alien to its ordinary practice.... Instinct knows everything in the invariable tracks which have been laid down for it; nothing when off this track. Sublime inspirations of science and amazing inconsequences of stupidity are both its heritage, accordingly as it is acting under normal or accidental conditions. [177] It would be interesting to pursue this inquiry into the general laws of instinct, and to give, as a pendant to the antithesis of its wisdom and stupidity, the no less singular antithesis of its automatism and its variations. But that we may not beyond all measure enlarge the proportions of this monograph we will pass on at once to the determination of the causes of instinct, as related by our naturalist philosopher. The laudator temporis acti is untimely, for the world progresses. Yes, but backwards at times. In my young days, in the twopenny classics, we were taught that man is a reasoning animal; to-day, in learned volumes, it is demonstrated that human reason is only a higher degree upon a scale whose base descends into the depths of animality. There is the more and the less, and all the intermediate degrees, but nowhere a sudden solution of continuity. It begins at zero in the albumen of a cell, and rises to the mighty brain of a Newton. The noble faculty of which we were so proud is a zoological attribute. This is an assertion of grave significance.... Assuredly we have need of ingenuousness in entomology. Without a good dose of this quality, sheer wrongheadedness in the eyes of practical folk, who could trouble himself about insects? Yes, let us be naïve, without being childishly credulous. Before making the animal reason, let us reason a little ourselves. Above all, let us consult the experimental test. Facts gathered at random, without a critical selection, cannot constitute a law. [178] And the prudent naturalist sifts all the anecdotes and records of habits, all the rational or sentimental achievements which the writers of books and the “glorifiers of the animal” pass from hand to hand, showing clearly that all the facts alleged in proof of the intelligence of animals are ill-observed or wrongly interpreted. Having shown in its true light one of these fabricated facts related by Clairville, he cries: