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ercised it cannot be, in the sense in which alone it can be 

 understood by our experience of it, as the instances ad- 

 duced may perhaps have sufficiently shown. Not that 

 I entertain any doubt that the eye, and so, that other organs, 

 of which the particular office in insects is less certain, may 

 be regarded as avenues by which impressions come into 

 their bodies ; but such impressions are clearly not, as with 

 us, destined to become interwoven with the phenomena 

 of mind. If in some of the more remarkable passages of 

 insect life, acts are done which certainly imply design and 

 intention, yet many others, in their economy might be suf- 

 ficiently explained by stimuli acting upon organism, as in 

 plants where this explanation would be held sufficient. 

 And as to those actions which are placed beyond, far beyond 

 this explanation, since there can only be two possible hy- 

 potheses on the subject, whereof the one endows the insect 

 with powers that belong to mind essentially, and by impli- 

 cation, confers not only skill and intelligence, but immor- 

 tality, on a bee or a wasp for mind is indistructible : 

 while the second considers him only as a machine moved 

 unerringly by au intelligence not his own. I cannot choose, 

 but adopt the latter. Apparenily, but not really intelligent, that 

 is, not intelligent with intelligence of theirs, insects seem to me 

 to come under some such denomination as that of machines, 

 beautifully contrived within, but worked from without. 

 The comparatively simpler objects of the mere sustentation 

 of the individual and the secure perpetuation of the race, have 

 been provided for in the helpless and passionless plant, and 

 might be in insects, by no other than the first of the methods 

 suggested, by stimuli acting on organism ; and as to those 

 more striking wonders in their economy which excite our 

 admiration, and are the results of mind, they obtain an 

 equal explanation, whether we suppose insects to think and 

 care for themselves, and to be wise, and skilful, and frugal, 

 and industrious, or what not, in their own Behalf, or to be 

 immediately thought for and cared for by the Supremo 



