A NUMEROUS FAMILY
Too Long; Didn't Read
“APLANT-LOUSE, we will suppose,” resumed Uncle Paul, “has just established itself on the tender shoot of a rosebush. It is alone, all alone. A few days after, young plant-lice surround it: they are its sons. How many are there? Ten, twenty, a hundred? Let us say ten. Is that enough to assure the preservation of the species? Don’t laugh at my question. I know well that if the plant-lice were missing from the rosebushes, the order of things would not be sensibly changed.”
“The ants would be the most to be pitied,” said Emile.
“The round earth would continue to turn just the same, even when the last plant-louse was dying on its leaf; but it is not, in truth, an idle question to ask if ten plant-lice suffice to preserve the race; for science has no higher object than the quest of providential means for maintaining everything in a just measure of prosperity.