The Life of the Bee 



existence there under the title of an 

 exception. 



For the fact is that in hybridity, in 

 variability (notably in the simultaneous 

 variations known as correlations of growth), 

 in instinct, in the processes of vital com- 

 petition, in geologic succession and the 

 geographic distribution of organised be- 

 ings, in mutual affinities, as indeed in 

 every other direction, the idea of nature 

 reveals itself, in one and the same phe- 

 nomenon and at the very same time, as 

 circumspect and shiftless, niggard and 

 prodigal, prudent and careless, fickle and 

 stable, agitated and immovable, one 

 and innumerable, magnificent and squalid. 

 There lay open before her the immense 

 and virgin fields of simplicity ; she chose 

 to people them with trivial errors, with 

 petty contradictory laws that stray through 

 existence like a flock of blind sheep. It 

 is true that our eye, before which these 

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