residue, makes its appearance. This pellet is white, with not a
speck of tainted matter, proving that life persists until the body
is reduced to nothing.

We here witness the transfusion of one animal into another, the
change of Chalicodoma substance into Anthrax substance; and, as
long as the transfusion is not complete, as long as the eaten has
not disappeared altogether and become the eater, the ruined
organism fights against destruction. What manner of life is this,
which may be compared with the life of a night light whose
extinction is not accomplished until the last drop of oil has
burnt away? How is any creature able to fight against the final
tragedy of corruption up to the last moment in which a nucleus of
matter remains as the seat of vital energy? The forces of the
living creature are here dissipated not through any disturbance of
the equilibrium of those forces, but for the want of any point of
application for them: the larva dies because materially there is
no more of it.

Can we be in the presence of the diffusive life of the plant, a
life which persists in a fragment? By no means: the grub is a
more delicate organic structure. There is unity between the
several parts; and none of them can be jeopardized without
involving the ruin of the others. If I myself give the larva a
wound, if I bruise it, the whole body very soon turns brown and
begins to rot. It dies and decomposes by the mere prick of a
needle; it keeps alive, or at least preserves the freshness of the
live tissues, so long as it is not entirely emptied by the
Anthrax' sucker. A nothing kills it; an atrocious wasting does
not. No, I fail to understand the problem; and I bequeath it to