118 ON THE LATEST FORM OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 
also, is always confined within very narrow limits. The instinct is invariably pliable to - 
the same extent, and that a very limited one. Bees and wasps build cells very nearly 
on the same pattern, which is curiously elaborate and symmetrical; they even change 
this pattern a little, so as to fit together the cells of different sizes which they need, or 
to hang securely the topmost or innermost row of cells to the top or side of their habi- 
tation; always returning, however, to the typical form of the cell as soon as pos- 
sible. Bees build invariably with wax, wasps invariably with a paper-like substance, 
though an interchange of these materials would often be convenient, and a capacity 
of changing the material on an emergency would certainly conduce to the animal's 
preservation. 
A true variation, such as this Theory requires, would be the manifestation by an 
individual in the wild state, or undomesticated, of some feat, quality, or degree of in- 
stinct, however slight, totally unlike anything that had been manifested by its fellows. 
. Of such variation the observations of naturalists have not afforded us a single instance. 
The architecture and internal economy of a beehive or a wasps’ nest, so far as known, 
marvellously complex and elaborate as they are, have not varied by a hairs breadth ` 
since the days of Aristotle: Bees have been carefully watched by man for over two 
thousand years; they have been carried. by him to a vast. number of localities beyond 
those originally inhabited by this insect. The whole continent of America has been 
populated by the ordinary hive-bee from Europe. Thus the experiment, whether 
change of circumstances might not possibly induce variation, may be said to have been 
fairly tried. There are from 15,000 to 20,000 bees in every healthy hive; and the 
number of their hives, taking all parts of the world together, almost defies calculation. 
This enormous stock of them has to be renewed at short intervals, as the bee's life does 
not usually exceed a single year. And yet the typical bee cell, with all its marvellous 
symmetry and complexity, finished with the precision of a 100,000th part of an inch, 
has not changed the length of one of its lines since it first excited the astonishment of 
man. With this known amount of invariability, how great is the time that would be 
requisite for developing the instinct of a bee into human reason ? 
But here it is necessary that instinct should be sharply distinguished from some of 
the other powers with which it is generally accompanied. No one denies that the 
brutes have certain mental endowments in common with men. They have appetites, 
propensities, desires, affections, memory, simple imagination or the power of repro- 
ducing the sensible past in mental pictures, and even judgment of the simple or in- 
tuitive kind. They compare and judge, as when the dog or cat decides correctly what 
height or breadth it can safely jump, or how large an orifice must be to admit the pas- 
