96 WHTTE-PINE LEAF-LOUSE. 



condition the next month or the next year, or what will be the^ 

 future necessities of their offspring which perhaps are yet unborn ? 

 "\V,. n,ri hardly prepared to attribute to them such superhuman in- 

 telligenLC. If they do not know, then what is it that prompts 

 them to take such wise and far-reaching precautions ? Who will 

 answer? I ask the question, but I shall hear no response, for 

 there is no earthly intelligence which can solve the mystery. 



I can conceive of the formation of a planet, by the condensation 

 of nebulous matter, in obedience to the law of gravitation. I can 

 form some idea, however unsatisfactory, of the development of or- 

 ganic bodies by the operation of physical laws, responsive to the ' 

 impressions of surrounding circumstances. But that an insect 

 which was born yesterday, and which will die to-morrow, can, 

 without the invocation of a wisdom superiors to her own, adopt a 

 systematic course of conduct having for its object the safety and 

 welfare of her future progeny, which will not spring into active 

 existence till long after she herself shall have perished, — this, it 

 passes the bounds of my imagination to conceive. 



It is said that Galen was converted from Atheism by the con- 

 templation of the human skeleton ; but I confess that nothing has 

 60 strongly impressed upon my own mind the presence of an all- 

 pervading intelligence in nature, as the wonderful prophetic in- 

 stincts of insects. 



