The Life of the Bee 



of the vastest and most magnificent brain 

 of the hive : the most beautiful and com- 

 plex, the most perfect, that, in another 

 order and with a different organisation, is 

 to be found in nature after that of man. 

 Here again, as in every quarter where 

 the scheme of the world is known to us, 

 there where the brain is, are authority 

 and victory, veritable strength and wis- 

 dom. And here again it is an almost 

 invisible atom of this mysterious sub- 

 stance that organises and subjugates 

 matter, and is able to create its own 

 little triumphant and permanent place in 

 the midst of the stupendous, inert forces 

 of nothingness and death.^ 



1 The brain of the bee, according to the calcula- 

 tion of Dujardin, constitutes the i — 174th part of the 

 insect's weight, and that of the ant ^the i-296th. 

 On the other hand the peduncular parts, whose de- 

 velopment usually keeps pace with the triumphs the 

 intellect achieves over instinct, are somewhat less 

 important in the bee than in the ant. It would seem 



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