To be admitted to the spectacle of these tiny creatures, to become familiar
with their habits, to grasp the mysterious threads which connect them one
with another and with the vast universe: for this the cold and deliberate
vision of the specialist would often be insufficient. There is an art of
observation, and the gift of observation is a true function of that
constantly alert intelligence, continually dominated by the need of delving
untiringly down to the ultimate truth accessible, "allowing ourselves to
pass over nothing without seeking its reason, and habitually following up
every response with another question, until we come to the granite wall of
the Unknowable." Above all we need an ardent and interested sympathy, for
"we penetrate farther into the secret of things by the heart than by the
reason," as Toussenel has said; and "it is only by intuition that we can
know what life truly is," adds Bergson profoundly. (7/13.) Now Fabre loves
these little peoples and knows how to make us love them. How tenderly he
speaks of them; with what solicitude he observes them; with what love he
follows the progress of their nurslings; the young grubs wriggling in his
test-tubes, with doddering heads, are happy; and he himself is happy to see
them "well-fed and shining with health." He pities the bee stabbed by the
Philanthus "in the holy joys of labour." He sympathizes with the sufferings
of these little creatures and their hard labours. If, in his search for
ideas, he has to overturn their dwellings, "he repents of subjecting
maternal love to such tribulations," and if he is constrained to put them
to the question, to torment them in order to extract their secrets, he is
grieved to have provoked "such miseries!" (7/14.) Having provided for their
needs, and satisfied with the secrets which they have revealed to him, it
is not without regret and difficulty that he parts from them and restores
them "to the delights of liberty."

He is thoroughly convinced, moreover, that all the creatures that share the
face of the earth with us are accomplishing an august and appointed task.