SOMATIC PHYSIOLOGY. 305 



insect in nature, with its generation, which properly precedes its exist- 

 ence, in fact producing it. If the generation be effective, its whole subse- 

 quent life is mere development, and its first appearance is its develop- 

 ment in the egg. In the egg it first takes an independent existence, 

 and it requires but the most universal agents in nature, light, air, and 

 warmth, to raise its, as it were, preformed individuality to its perfect 

 individuality, and thus its life in the egg characterises the first act of 

 its existence as an insect. When the embryo period is closed, the 

 larva, more independent than before, takes its place in nature. Its 

 whole object is development, and this it attains by means of nutriment. 

 Growth is the consequence of its then excessive voracity ; its skin 

 becomes too narrow, it strips it off, and acquires a new one. This 

 moulting it repeats several times, until full grown, and it then first 

 feels that it has, as it were, overfed itself; it therefore ceases, fasts some 

 days, again moults, and in a tolerably long period of continual sleep it 

 lives upon its own fat; the intestinal canal consequently shrinks up, 

 and at its expense the organs of generation are developed. This period 

 may be compared with the stage of puberty in man and animals. 

 When, however, this last period of development is completed, the per- 

 fected insect makes its appearance in its full state of activity with 

 preponderating irritable and sensible organs. Motion and sensation 

 are its life, propagation its end, and to which its chief spiritual func- 

 tions are directed. The male seeks the female with restless fervour, the 

 latter allows itself to be found, and yields, and its spiritual life then 

 commences in its care about the depositing its eggs, in the structure of 

 its nest, and its anxiety for its young. The males do not at all par- 

 ticipate in these occupations, but become, as in the bees, turned forth 

 as unprofitable members of the community. 



This therefore is the subject of our inquiry in the first subsection, 

 and its transit to the second, and their connexion together is also thus 

 exposed. 



