22 - An Inquiry respecting 



walls of each of the six cells which surround it. But, " it is to be 

 remarked, that though the general form of the cells is hexagonal, 

 that of those first begun is pentagonal, the side next the top of the 

 hive, and by which the comb is attached, being much broader 

 than the rest; whence the comb is more strongly united to the 

 hive than if these cells were of the ordinary shape. It of course 

 follows that the base of these cells, instead of being formed like 

 those of the hexagonal cells of three rhomboids, consists of one 

 rhomboid and two trapeziums."* 



Here then are effects both of geometry and philosophy, although 

 the creatures are neither geometricians nor philosophers. They 

 indeed act precisely as geometricians and philosophers would act, 

 were they to undertake constructing the same thing with the same 

 end in view. Neither can we conceive them in their process of 

 Collecting honey and storing it up, as actuated by any reflection 

 upon the nature of the act ; or as contemplating a season of winter 

 when their labours must cease. Actuated by an impressing influence 

 to gather and store up, and led to the immediate means and to 

 ttie best mode of applying them, their consciousness, although it 

 reaches to and embraces the whole of the sensible detail of the 

 operations to which it is directed, and includes a gratification re- 

 sulting from the exercise of its inferior powers, reaches no further : 

 their conscious world consists of the sensible images of flowers and 

 fields and combs and honey ; in these, as to themselves, " they 

 live and move and have their being:" — they advance no higher; 

 — they know nothing of a regular hexagon, separate from a honey 

 comb, nor can they reason upon the consequences of their actions. 



Reason, intelligence and science, therefore, cannot, as is asserted 

 by some philosophers,+ be the result of instinct; or the Bee would 

 certainly be a reasoner : it must be evident, on the contrary, that 

 its consciousness can reach only to the immediate inferior acts 

 themselves, to which it is directed by a potent energy operating 

 upon its nature. 



Exercising in voluntary consciousness the inferior powers just 

 mentioned, the animal is led and informed by an influence, im- 



* Kirby and Spence, vol. i, p, 496. 

 t See Smellie's Pliilos. ot'^at. Hist, ut supra. 



