SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 373, 
perfect structure, cannot place an animal above those 
which in every other respect so obviously excel them. 
With regard to insects particularly, we may further ask — 
Who that considers how man employs his powers and 
organs even in his most degraded state, or that contem- 
plates the wonderful works that he is enabled to accom- 
plish when his faculties receive their due cultivation and 
direction, can avoid regarding him as superior to the 
rest of the animal creation ? And what unsophisticated 
mind, not entangled in the trammels of system, when it 
surveys the industry, the various proceedings, and almost 
miraculous works that have been laid before you, the 
waxen palaces of the bee, — the paper cottages of the 
wasp and hornet, — the crowded metropolis of the white 
ants, — the arts, the manufactures, and stratagems of 
other insects, — the associations and labours for the com- 
mon good of those that are gregarious ; — will not at once 
conclude that they must be a superior race to the slug, 
the snail, and others, which live only to eat and propa- 
gate their kind ? 
Or who, that considers the wonderful structure of 
the animals whose cause I advocate, — the analogy that 
exists between their organs of manducation, of motion, 
and of sensation, and between various other parts of it a , 
with those of the higher animals, — the acuteness of their 
senses, their wonderful strength of muscle b , and powers 
of locomotion , — but will think them superior to the head- 
less and almost inanimate oyster or muscle, or the con- 
glomerate Alcyonia, though they have a heart and circu- 
lation ? 
■ Vol. III. p. 46—. Sec above, p. 247- 
b Sec above, p. 195—. c Vol. II. p. 300 — . 
