ON DfSECT ANATOMY. 393 



proper use of structural indications has been made. But classification 

 is itself only a means, not an end, and insect anatomy has an important 

 bearing on many other questions than those which occupy the 

 Entomologist. I propose, therefore, to devote a few minutes to the 

 consideration of those physiological aspects of insect life, which 

 offer most promise of interest, and justify that closer scrutiny of 

 structural details to which I have invited attention. 



It is seldom that popular enquiry and anatomical investigation 

 run together. Bat, if at any time, or upon any question, it is when 

 the mysteries of organic life and animal automatism become 

 subjects of speculation. 



On the popular side, insect life has always suggested a belief in 

 some form of " soul-life " as our German friends would term it. On 

 the scientific side, insect-nerve physiology has yielded important 

 experience, and thrown great light on the specific functions of nerve 

 and ganglionic centre. 



In the several orders of Artie nlata, we see the machinery of 



automatic action in its simplest and most complex forms, free from 



many complications which render the phenomena in animals of 



higher cerebral organisation more obscure. In the insect, the 



study of reflex action rises in significance proportionately with the 



perfections of special sensory functions, and of those actions, called 



*' instinctive," which govern the whole organism. And the 



constr active type of the instruments by which all these functions 



are performed is especially suggestive, while the field of psychologic 



debate is greatly narrowed by observing the peculiar association and 



co-ordination of the several insect organs and faculties. In former 



times the minds of philosophers were much exercised in discussing 



the limits of volition and the antagonism betweem instinctive and 



rational acts. But as soon as reflex action was discovered, or 



rather explained, and its observed occurrence in the higher animals 



and man himself made us familiar with unconscious automatism, 



the inferior creature was at once dispossessed of its supposed right to 



a '' soul-life." At the present moment, the continually extended 



observation of automatism, which seems to keep pace in its spliere 



b2 



