Does this mean that we should attach ourselves to falsehood, to an unreal and factitious poetry, and find our gladness therein for want of anything better?  Or that in the example before us—­in itself nothing, but we dwell on it because it stands for a thousand others, as also for our entire attitude in face of divers orders of truths—­that here we should ignore the physiological explanation, and retain and taste only the emotions of this nuptial flight, which is yet, and whatever the cause, one of the most lyrical, most beautiful acts of that suddenly disinterested, irresistible force which all living creatures obey and are wont to call love?  That were too childish; nor is it possible, thanks to the excellent habits every loyal mind has today acquired.

The fact being incontestable, we must evidently admit that the exsertion of the organ is rendered possible only by the expansion of the tracheal vesicles.  But if we, content with this fact, did not let our eyes roam beyond it; if we deduced therefrom that every thought that rises too high or wanders too far must be of necessity wrong, and that truth must be looked for only in the material details; if we did not seek, no matter where, in uncertainties often far greater than the one this little explanation has solved, in the strange mystery of crossed fertilisation for instance, or in the perpetuity of the race and life, or in the scheme of nature; if we did not seek in these for something beyond the current explanation, something that should prolong it, and conduct us to the beauty and grandeur that repose in the unknown, I would almost venture to assert that we should pass our existence further away from the truth than those, even, who in this case wilfully shut their eyes to all save the poetic and wholly imaginary interpretation of these marvellous nuptials.  They evidently misjudge the form and colour of the truth, but they live in its atmosphere and its influence far more than the others, who complacently believe that the entire truth lies captive within their two hands.  For the first have made ample preparations to receive the truth, have provided most hospitable lodging within them; and even though their eyes may not see it, they are eagerly looking towards the beauty and grandeur where its residence surely must be.

We know nothing of nature’s aim, which for us is the truth that dominates every other.  But for the very love of this truth, and to preserve in our soul the ardour we need for its search, it behoves us to deem it great.  And if we should find one day that we have been on a wrong road, that this aim is incoherent and petty, we shall have discovered its pettiness by means of the very zeal its presumed grandeur had created within us; and this pettiness once established, it will teach us what we have to do.  In the meanwhile it cannot be unwise to devote to its search the most strenuous, daring efforts of our heart and our reason.  And should the last word of all this be wretched, it will be no little achievement to have laid bare the inanity and the pettiness of the aim of nature.