THIRD SECTION. 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



199. 



WE have now, after the preceding description of the insect body, 

 both external and internal, arrived at the point whence we can survey 

 the life of insects in one large representation, and, as it were, overlook- 

 ing form, shall only endeavour to seize their spiritual effects. This is, 

 namely, the theme of Physiology, to exhibit to us in a simple but well- 

 ordered description all the phenomena of the organic world, which befits 

 it only as the abstract of living beings, and which must be considered 

 consequently as the results of animation, and as the necessary attendants 

 of life; and as general physiology undertakes to solve this problem with 

 reference to the whole of animated nature, the physiology of a solitary 

 group can be expected merely to occupy itself with the description of 

 the vital relations of this group. Such a group is formed by the world 

 of insects, and the task of our physiology found. Here, consequently, 

 belongs all that does not refer to the description of form; and here 

 belongs also every phenomenon which individuals or numbers of insects 

 have betrayed to the observer, however insignificant and unimportant to 

 the illustration of the whole they may originally appear to us ; and it is 

 its task to arrange these phenomena, and to reduce them to recognised 

 laws, and where this will not succeed, thence to prove the possible 

 falsity of a principle adopted as true. The OBSERVATION of insects is 

 therefore the foundation of their physiology, and it will be only when 

 all the various phenomena of all the families, genera, and species shall 

 be fully known that a perfect solution may be expected to be given of 

 the problem of physiology; until then our knowledge will be but 

 fragmentary. But the difficulty of the fulfilment of this necessary 

 requisition is evinced by the number of years that have already passed 



