MICROSCOPIC BRAINS. ^ 



main material of thought with bees and flies, 

 and that is visible objects. For you must 

 think about something if you think at all ; 

 and you can hardly imagine a contemplative 

 blow-fly setting itself down to reflect, like 

 a Hindu devotee, on the syllable Om, or on 

 the oneness of existence. Abstract ideas 

 are not likely to play a large part in apian 

 consciousness. A bee has a very perfect eye, 

 and with this eye it can see not only form, 

 but also colour, as Sir John Lubbock's ex- 

 periments have shown us. The information 

 which it gets through its eye, coupled with 

 other ideas derived from touch, smell, and 

 taste, no doubt makes up the main thinkable 

 and knowable universe as it reveals itself to 

 the apian intelligence. To ourselves and to 

 bees alike the world is, on the whole, a 

 coloured picture, with the notions of distance 

 and solidity thrown in by touch and muscular 

 effort ; but sight undoubtedly plays the first 

 part in forming our total conception of things 

 generally. 



