Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will not cover all the facts.  You will naturally ask how it happens that, if the question be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, dogs, cats, and many other animals have been made the subject of Western poems from ancient times.  The silence is only upon the subject of insects.  And, again, Christianity has one saint—­the most beautiful character in all Christian hagiography—­who thought of all nature in a manner that, at first sight, strangely resembles Buddhism.  This saint was Francis of Assisi, born in the latter part of the twelfth century, so that he may be said to belong to the very heart of the Middle Ages,—­the most superstitious epoch of Christianity.  Now this saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they were animated beings.  He addressed the sun as “my brother sun”; and he spoke of the moon as his sister.  He preached not only to human beings, but also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great many poems on these subjects, full of a strange and childish beauty.  For example, his sermon to the doves, beginning, “My little sisters, the doves,” in which he reminds them that their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is a beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into nearly all modern languages.  But observe that neither St. Francis nor any other saint has anything to say on the subject of insects.

Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the meaning of these distinctions.  Among the ancient races of Asia, where the Jewish faith arose, there were strange and sinister beliefs about insects—­old Assyrian superstitions, old Babylonian beliefs.  Insects seemed to those early peoples very mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it appears to have been thought that they had a close relation to the world of demons and evil spirits.  I suppose you know that the name of one of their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies.  The Jews, as is shown by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; and it is quite probable that they were passed on to the days of Christianity.  Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern Africa the Church had to fight against superstitions of an equally strange sort derived from old Egyptian beliefs.  Among the Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and became symbols of divinity,—­such as the beetle.  Now I imagine that for these reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this topic.