340 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS, 



They want a habitation to reside in, and food for their subsistence. Does 

 not this look as if desire were the operating cause, which induces them to 

 unite their labors to construct the one and provide the other ? Their nests 

 contain a numerous family of helpless brood. Does not love here seem 

 to urge them to that exemplary and fond attention, and those unremitted 

 and indefatigable exertions manifested by the whola,communhy for the 

 benefit of these dear objects ? Is it not also evidenced by their general 

 and singular attachment to their females, by their mutual caresses, by 

 their feeding each other, by their apparent sympathy with suffering indi- 

 viduals and endeavors to relieve them, by their readiness to help those 

 that are in difficulty, and finally by their sports and assemblies for relaxa- 

 tion ? That fear produces its influence upon them seems no less evident, 

 when we see them, agitated by the approach of enemies, endeavor to 

 remove what is most dear to them beyond their reach, unite their efforts 

 to repel their attacks, and to construct works of defence. They appear 

 to have besides a common language; for they possess the faculty, by 

 significative gestures and sounds, of communicating their wants and ideas 

 to each other.^ 



There are, however, the following great differences between human 

 societies and those of insects. Man is susceptible of individual attach- 

 ment, which forms the basis of his happiness, and the source of his purest 

 and dearest enjoyments : whereas the love of insects seems to be a kind 

 of instinctive patriotism that is extended to the whole community, never 

 distinguishing individuals, unless, as in the instance of the female bee^ 

 connected with that great object. 



Man also, endowed with reason, forms a judgment from circumstances, 

 and by a variety of means can attain the same end. Besides the language 

 of nature, gestures, and exclamations, which the passions produce, he is 

 gifted with the divine faculty of speech, and can express his thoughts by 

 articulate sounds or artificial language. — Not so our social insects. Every 

 species has its peculiar mode of proceeding, to which it adheres as to the 

 law of its nature, never deviating but under the control of imperious 

 circumstances ; for in particular instances, as you will see when I come to 

 treat of their instincts, they know how to vary, though not very materi- 

 ally, from the usual mode.- But they never depart, like man, from the 

 general system ; and, in common with the rest of the animal kingdom, 

 they have no articulate language. 



Human associations, under the direction of reason and revelation, are 

 also formed with higher views, — I mean as to government, morals, and 

 religion : — with respect to the last of these, the social insects of course 

 can have nothing to do, except that by their wonderful proceedings they 

 give man an occasion of glorifying his great Creator ; but in their instincts, 

 extraordinary as it may seem, they exhibit a semblance of the two former, 

 as will abundantly appear in the course of our correspondence. 



' It is not here meant to be asserted that insects are actuated by these passions in the 

 same way that man is, but only that in their various instincts they exhibit the semblance of 

 them, and, as it were, symhnlize them. 



* Plusieurs d'entre eux (Insectes) savent user de ressources ingenieuses dans les circon- 

 stances difTiciles: iis sortent alors de leur routine accoutumee, et semblent agir d'aprcs la 

 position dans laquelle ils se trouvent ; c'est la sans doute I'un des phenomenes les plus 

 curieiix de I'hisioire naturelle. Huber, Nouvelles Observations surles Abeilks, ii. 198. — Com- 

 pare also ibid. 250. note N. B. 



