CHAP. VI.] BEAUTY, HOW ACQUIRED. 153 



high standard under nature. The correction for the aberration of 

 light is said by Miiller not to be perfect even in that most perfect 

 organ, the human eye. Helmholtz, whose judgment no one will 

 dispute, after describing in the strongest terms the wonderful 

 power 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 sensations. One might say that 

 nature has taken delight in accumulating contradictions in order 

 to remove all foundation 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 contrivances in nature, this same reason tells us, 

 though we may easily err on both sides, that some other con- 

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

 perfect, which, when used against many kinds of enemies, cannot 

 be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and thus inevit- 

 ably causes the death of the insect by tearing 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 intensified, 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 members. If we 

 admire the truly wonderful power 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 utterly 

 useless to the community for 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 the 

 latter fortunately is most rare, is all the same to the inexorable 

 principle of natural selection. If we admire the several ingenious 

 contrivances, by which orchids and many other plants are fertilised 

 through insect agency, can we consider as equally perfect the 

 elaboration of dense clouds of pollen by our fir-trees, so that a few 

 granules may be wafted by chance on to the ovules t 



