Reflections upon Insect Psychology 



this levelling-theory made facts say more than 

 they really meant ; it struck me that, in order 

 to obtain their plain, they were lowering the 

 mountain-peak, man, and elevating the valley, 

 the animal. Now this levelling of theirs 

 needed proofs, to my mind; and, as I found 

 none in their books, or at any rate only doubt- 

 ful and highly debatable ones, I did my own 

 observing, in order to arrive at a definite con- 

 viction; I sought; I experimented. 



To speak with any certainty, it behoves us 

 not to go beyond what we really know.^ I am 

 beginning to have a passable acquaintance 

 with insects, after spending some forty years 

 in their company. Let us question the insect, 

 then: not the first that comes along, but the 

 most gifted, the Hymenopteron. I am giving 

 my opponents every advantage. Where will 

 they find a creature more richly endowed with 

 talent? It would seem as though, in creating 

 it, nature had delighted in bestowing the great- 

 est amount of industry upon the smallest body 

 of matter. Can the bird, wonderful architect 

 that it is, compare its work with that master- 

 piece of higher geometry, the edifice of the 

 Bee? The Hymenopteron rivals man him- 

 self. We build towns, the Bee erects cities; 

 159 



