194 UTILITARIAN DOCTRINE, HOW FAR TRUE: 



even in that most perfect organ, the human eye. Hehn- 

 holtz, whose judgment no one will dispute, after describ- 

 ing in the strongest terms the wonderful powers of the 

 human eye, adds these remarkable words: '' That which 

 we have discovered in the way of inexactness and imper- 

 fection in the optical machine and in the image on the 

 retina, is as nothing in comparison with the incongruities 

 which we have just come across in the domain of the sen- 

 sations. One might say that nature has taken delight in 

 accumulating contradictions in order to remove all founda- 

 tion from the theory of a pre-existing harmony between 

 the external and internal worlds." If our reason leads us 

 to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable con- 

 trivances in nature, this same reason tells us, though we 

 may easily err on both sides, that some other contrivances 

 are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the bee as 

 perfect, which, when used against many kinds of enemies, 

 can not be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, 

 and thus inevitably causes the death of the insect by tear- 

 ing out its viscera? 



If we look at the sting of the bee, as having existed in a 

 remote progenitor, as a boring and serrated instrument, 

 like that in so many members of the same great order, and 

 that it has since been modified but not perfected for 

 its present purpose, with the poison originally adapted for 

 some other object, such as to produce galls, since inten- 

 sified, we can perhaps understand how it is that the use of 

 the sting should so often cause the insect^s own death: for 

 if on the whole the power of stinging be useful to the social 

 community, it will fulfil all the requirements of natural 

 selection, though it may cause the death of some few mem- 

 bers. If we admire the truly wonderful jiower of scent by 

 which the males of many insects find their females, can we 

 admire the production for this single purpose of thousands 

 of drones, which are utterlv useless to the communitv foj 

 any other purpose, and which are ultimately slaughtered by 

 their industrious and sterile sisters? It may be difficult, 

 but we ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the 

 queen-bee, which urges her to destroy the young queens, her 

 daughters, as soon as they are born, or to perish herself in 

 the combat; for undoubtedly this is for the good of the 

 community; and maternal love or maternal hatred, though 



