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and therefore must be capable of mental hallucination, 

 and be liable to go mad or melancholy ! But all this is 

 not yet enough \ Having conferred on them ideas, and, 

 together with ideas, of strict necessity all the senses by 

 which ideas are obtained, we must still as ants are found 

 to communicate with others extend their privileges ! The 

 shipwrecked mariner may have made his wants intelligible 

 to savages -but only his mere wants he certainly could 

 not enter into the details of his mishap, or make the manner 

 of his escape apprehended by signs and gesticulations. But 

 as to the Protagonist in our tale, why none but a Mime in 

 those latter days, when Drama had become Pantomime, 

 and the stately Iambic was no longer acceptable to the 

 mob, could have done as much as he did, in a few seconds, 

 without the aid of the flexible features, or the hands and 

 the fingers, in which man rejoices ! by which of his sema- 

 phoric organs is an ant to tell a story, which it requires a 

 printed page to record, even after conceiving a wish, or in- 

 tention to set about it ? Not by his eyes! they are fixed in 

 their sockets, and about as unintellectual as the glass eyes 

 in a doll ; he could not even look up, if he would. I pre- 

 sume he could not improvise his part, by the inven- 

 tion of new signs, and as to the employment of old 

 ones, traditional in the ant republic, one would as soon 

 believe they had a language at once. Intercourse of mind 

 between insects! No 1 no! an exchange of intelligent signs 

 for the execution of particular ends, in this order of cre- 

 ated beings, must be deemed impossible in the face of 

 whatever supposed examples, or you must at once concede 

 to insects a full set of senses, and an intellect capable of 

 employing them in the acquisition and advancement of 

 knowledge? 



I know that to engage in the task of depreciating the 

 reputation either of man or fly, is not the way to increase 

 our own. Every difficulty raised will be considered as 

 a cavil by those who wish to believe what their child- 



