REFLECTIONS. 303 



mechanic powers put into the hands, more properly the bodies, 

 of our little fellow-labourers who cannot make instruments for 

 themselves ? We think they have ; for the Giver of all good 

 never, perhaps, bestows a gift for the peculiar use of some, 

 which he bestows not also for the general benefit of all his 

 creatures. Now, then, that these insect mechanisms have 

 been, many of them, brought by the microscope within exami- 

 nation, they may, even as models, afford hints for improve- 

 ment of some of our present tools or construction of new ones ; 

 but even supposing them, as patterns, entirely useless, there is in 

 the gifts and works of the lower animals, of insects in parti- 

 cular, a moral voice awakening both our humility and our pride. 

 Must not oui' conceit be lowered on finding that nu- 

 merous of our instruments, only now perfected, of our 

 works, only now performed after ages of bungling attempt and 

 failure, have been, since the world began, the former pos- 

 sessed, the latter effected, by diminutive creatures holding 

 one of the most despised places in the scale of creation ; while 

 even of the boasted discoveries of science not a few have been 

 anticipated in the laws which regulate the movements and 

 mechanisms of the same insect bodies ? From the above facts 

 spring, on the other hand, reflections no less calculated to 

 make us proud, rationally proud, of our pains -acquired imple- 

 ments and comparatively slow performances. If we consider 

 the admirable operations and curious structures of the insect 

 race, as conducted and constructed under the most instinctive 



VOL. III. T 



