36 



in reference to his neighbour's, which if he did not, the 

 parts would not tally, and the work, as a whole, would 

 be an amorphous failure, in place of a geometrically ac- 

 curate model ! This labour completed, the Commissariat 

 department is to be placed in activity, and the work of 

 provision forthwith commences. But, does innate intel- 

 ligence, then, guide the bee to make more honey and wax 

 than can ever be necessary for his own or his family's 

 consumption? and, if he acts by his own sagacity, of course 

 he does not intend to elaborate it for yours : but make the 

 operation not the instinct of the bee for his own sake, and 

 it may well be conceived, and agreeably to the strictest 

 analogy, that the wisdom which created, may have imposed 

 the task upon the insect of performing this recondite che- 

 mistry for the use of man. 



" Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes !" 



The more I reflect on the subject of the facts on which 

 I ground my reflections I have thought it best to place the 

 greater number in the notes that are to follow the more 

 am I led to believe that, whatever there is of wonder in the 

 economy of insects, (and where is there so much ?) is the 

 result of an exterior agency, and that, alike in their wisest 

 and their most foolish actions, they intend nothing. The first 

 thing they do is as perfect as the last. They never profit by 

 misfortune, or modify their actions from experience ; and as 

 all knowledge, except that of the pure intellect, (which is not 

 in question here, where things are to be done as well as 

 conceived) comes from experience, therefore can they accu- 

 mulate no knowledge ; without knowledge, it follows that 

 they can have no will, and so, that their supposed instinct- 

 ive actions, cannot be the result of choice; and all this is 

 strictly in conformity to conclusions at which we had long 

 since arrived, by another process, in the first pages of this 



* I}ct$*! t ua]ct ou pa.bwu\ct. Crrosus apud Herod. 



