length of admitting an intelligent exercise of vision, or 

 discern in these acts the evidence of mental operations. 

 Is it possible to do so, when the actions which prima 

 facie might appear to result from sight, are found in one 

 instance, to involve a complicated, and salutary exer- 

 cise of intellect, in another a perverse and ruinous 

 fatality ? Or, shall it be said of the moth which thus 

 perishes by myriads, Quos Deus vult perdere prius de- 

 mentat ! No! the bee is too wise, the moth too foolish, 

 to allow them the possession of intelligent vision ! and the 

 explanation of what they do must therefore be sought for 

 elsewhere. Meanwhile, what would be folly, as an act in- 

 tended by the insect, may be simply its fate, an inexpli- 

 cable appointment of the wisdom of God. 



HEARING. The same difficulty occurs as in the pre- 

 ceding case. Insects are believed to act as though they 

 heard, and are therefore supposed to hear : but as any 

 act, consequent upon intelligent vision, proves will, which 

 throws us back on the necessity of a sensorium, and of a 

 brain, its seat, to which all the organs of sense corres- 

 pond, and report their discoveries hearing can alone be 

 supposable on the same conditions. But a swarm of bees 

 follows the tinkling of a bell, or the more discordant clang- 

 ing of a cymbal! That loud harsh sounds generally inti- 

 midate animals, rather than allure them, is sufficiently 

 certain ; but that some hundreds of bees, (who may have 

 no ear for music, to judge from their own monotony,) 

 should have a positive taste for discord, and all consent in 

 a common action, to which that discord disposes them, 

 would be particularly remarkable. But we need not rest 

 here : neither the bee, nor any other insect, has any organ 

 to which the name of ear can be applied, so that if you 

 still determine to suppose such a sense in insects, from a 

 solitary instance for to be led by hearing, or alarmed by 

 hearing is not. as far as we recollect, even alleged of any 

 other ; if you still maintain that, at any rale, bees hear, 



