Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/216

the luminiferous organs of a firefly?………The very wonder of the thing forbids me to imagine gods at work: no mere god could ever contrive such a prodigy as the eye of a May-fly^[1] or the tail of a firefly.

Biology would answer thus:—"Though it is inconceivable that a structure like this should have been produced by accumulated effects of function on structure, yet it is conceivable that successive selections of favourable variations^[2] might have produced it." And no follower of Herbert Spencer is really justified in wandering further. But I cannot rid myself of the notion that Matter, in some blind infallible way, remembers; and that in every unit of living substance there slumber infinite potentialities, simply because to every ultimate atom belongs the infinite and indestructible experience of billions^[3] of billions of vanished universes.

註

1. Ephemeridae 科のものにて、epheremid とも day-fly ともいふ。英國にては、Trichoptera に屬するものにて、caddis-fly と呼ぶもの。
2. 生存に好都合な變種變態。
3. 英國にては百萬の百萬倍の數。米國にては百萬の千倍の數。