REFLECTIONS ON READING AUGUSTE FOREL

The name of Auguste Forel is renowned in the world of European science,
but within the confines of his own land his writings are perhaps less
well known than they should be. Every one is familiar with the social
activities of this splendid personality, of this man whose indefatigable
energies and ardent convictions have not been affected either by his age
or by ill-health. But Latin Switzerland, which justly admires the
writings of the naturalist J. H. Fabre, hardly seems to realise that in
Forel it is fortunate enough to possess an observer of nature whose
insight is no less keen than that of Fabre, and whose scientific
endowments are perchance even richer and more unerring. I have recently
been reading some of Auguste Forel's studies of ant life, and I have
been profoundly impressed by the wide scope of his experimental
researches, carried on for a whole lifetime.[75] While patiently
observing and faithfully describing the life of these insects, day by
day, hour by hour, and year after year, his thoughts have been
simultaneously directed towards the ultimate recesses of nature, so
that he has been able from time to time to raise for a moment a corner
of that veil of mystery which covers our own instincts.

Here is a strange fact. J. H. Fabre believes in providence, "le bon
Dieu"; Auguste Forel is a monist, a psycho-physicist. Nevertheless,
Forel's observations suggest to the reader a conception of nature which
is far less crushing than that suggested by the observations of Fabre.
The latter, untroubled by anxieties concerning the human soul, sees in
the little insects he is studying nothing more than marvellous machines.
But Forel discerns here and there sparks of reflective consciousness,
germs of individual will. These are no more than widely separated
luminous points, piercing the darkness. But the phenomenon is all the
more impressive for its rarity. I have amused myself by selecting from
out this wealth of observations a group of facts wherein are displayed
the secular instincts, the "anagke," of the species--oppugned,
shattered, vanquished. Wherefore should a combat of this sort be less
dramatic when waged by these humble ants than when it is waged by the
Atrides in _Orestes_? In all cases alike, we have the same waves of
force, blind or conscious; the same interplay of light and shade. And
the analogy of certain social phenomena, as we observe them among these
myriads