462 , INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



structure : and he gravely tells us that the boasted hex- 

 agonal cells of bees are produced by the reciprocal pres- 

 sure of the cylindrical bodies of these insects against 



each other a ! ! 







Nor is it requisite to advert at length to the explana- 

 tions of instinctive actions more recently given by Stef- 

 fens, a German author (one of the transcendentalists, I 

 conclude, from the incomprehensibility of his book to 

 my ordinary intellect), who says that the products of the 

 vaunted instinct of insects are nothing but " shootings 

 out of inorganic animal masses" (anorgische anschiisse} b ; 

 and by Lamarck , who attributes them to certain inhe- 

 rent inclinations arising from habits impressed upon the 

 organs of the animals concerned in producing them, by 

 the constant efflux towards these organs of the nervous 

 fluid, which during a series of ages has been displaced 

 in their endeavours to perform certain actions which 

 their necessities have given birth to. The mere state- 

 ment of an hypothesis of which the enunciation is nearly 

 unintelligible, and built upon the assumption of the 

 presence of an unseen fluid, and of the existence of the 

 animal some millions of years, is quite sufficient, and 

 would even be unnecessary if it were not of such late 

 origin. Neither shall I detain you with any formal con- 

 sideration of the hypothesis advanced by Addison and 



n Hist. Nat. Edit. 1785, v. 277- 



b Beitr'dge zur innern Naturgeschichte der Erde 1801. p. 298. 



c In his Philosophic Zoologique, Paris 1809 (ii. 325) a work which 

 every zoologist will, I think, join with me in regretting should be 

 devoted to metaphysical disquisitions built on the most gratuitous as- 

 sumptions, instead of comprising that luminous generalization of facts 

 relative to the animal world which is so great a desideratum, and 

 for performing which satisfactorily this eminent naturalist is so well 

 qualified. 



