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and sim^^le explaiiation liad never been proposed before. Since 

 tlieu I bave undertaken a regalar search in entomological 

 literature, in order to ascertain if any approacb to sucb a so- 

 lution could be found in previous writers, and to inquire into 

 the canses that liad delayed it so long. I shall now attempt 

 to give an account of my inquiry and to show that, as soon 

 as certain conditions, necessary for the confutation of that 

 error, were fulfìUed, the error disappeared of itself. 



The principal factor underlying the whole intellectual phe- 

 nomenon we are inquiring into, is the well-known influence 

 which prevails in ali human matters, and this factor is routine. 

 « Thinking is difificult, and acting according to reason is irk- 

 some », (1) said Groethe. People see, and believe in what they 

 see, and the belief easily becomes a tradition. It may be 

 asked: If those people had that belief, why did they not try 

 to verify it by experiment, the more so as an economical 

 interest seemed to be connected with it ? 



The answer is that they probably did try the experiment, 

 and did obtain something that looked like a bee; but that 

 there was a second part of the experiment, which, if they ever 

 tried it, never succeeded, and that was, to make that bee-like 

 something produce honey. If they did not care much about 

 this failure, and did not prosecute the experiment any fiirther, 

 it is probably because, in most cases, they found that it was 

 much easier to procure bees in the ordinary way. That such 

 was really the kind of reasoning which prevailed in those 

 times clearly results from the coUation of the passages of 

 ancient authors about the Bugonìa. There were dififerent recijjes 

 for it; one wanted the ox to be buried with projecting horns, 

 through which, after they were cut off, bees would emerge; 

 another (and no less a personage than Pliny), contended that 

 it is sufilcient to use the entrails of an ox, and to cover 

 them with dung, etc. Florentinus, an obscure writer in the 



. (1) u Denkeu ist schwer, iiach dem Geclachten handeln imbequem. » Goethe. 



