XXXYVY 
Hasits AND INSTINCTs. 
In the whole sphere of animal existence no domain offers a 
wider scope for the physiologist than the study of insect life, with 
its wonderful phases, its diversified instincts, and inexhaustible 
display of functional appliances. It is indeed from the life- 
history of such tribes and individuals that the most instructive 
lessons may be derived, as serving to exemplify the part which 
each is called upon to fulfil in the economy of the universe, and 
leading by induction to many important inferences bearing upon 
abstract theories of speculative philosophy. If, in fact, we limit 
our investigations to mere distinguishing characteristics, without 
extending our inquiries any farther, we are but taking a cursory 
glance at the index to Nature’s great work, without looking to 
the more profound and interesting phenomena recorded in the 
text. 
It has been the fashion of the day to elaborate new theories of 
development from antecedent epochs, and to attribute to adven- 
titious circumstances all the marvellous results we now witness 
throughout Nature’s realm. When, however, it becomes essential 
to reconcile hypothetical argument with the stern logic of facts, 
we find the Coryphei of the Evolutionary Propaganda at variance 
among themselves on fundamental principles: some of these, of 
the most advanced school, demonstrating, to their own entire 
satisfaction, the doctrine of ‘spontaneous generation’ as an 
essential element of new life, to be subjected in process of time 
to all the multitudinous ‘ differentiations’ which their theory 
involves; and, in the climax of their enthusiasm, expounding the 
utter incompatibility of low forms of life remaining unchanged for 
illimitable periods amid their influential ‘environments’: while 
others—their compeers—censured for such irrational conceptions 
and illogical inferences as untenable assumptions — potently 
develop the fallibility of those impulsive convictions to which the 
former have thus triumphantly pinned their faith. 
But by whatsoever imparted faculties and inherent tendencies 
the principles of Biology may be governed and maintained, the 
more we attend to the functional relations of the several races, as 
intimately associated with those structural endowments with which 
they are so eminently gifted, according to the exigency of their 
respective requirements, the more competent shall we become to 
