CHAP. II. SENSE OP PAIN IN INSECTS. 59 



have contributed in no small degree to strengthen 

 popular error, which assigns to the insect world the 

 same degree of feeling as is enjoyed or suffered by ver- 

 tebrated animals ; an error which we shall take this 

 opportunity of endeavouring to remove. It must be 

 obvious to every reflecting mind, that the higher and 

 more complicated is the degree of organic structure, the 

 more delicate, also, is the nervous sensibility residing 

 in the corporeal frame. From this theory, founded 

 upon anatomical facts, into which we need not enter, 

 it necessarily follows, that insects, from being less or- 

 ganised than vertebrated animals, would be much in- 

 ferior to them in that nervous delicacy from which 

 proceeds the sense of pain ; while, on the other hand, 

 and arguing on the same principle, they would expe- 

 rience corporeal suffering much more than the soft and 

 often headless Mollusca. This, indeed, cannot be 

 doubted by any one who is acquainted with the repro- 

 ductive power and who is not ? possessed by so 

 many of the latter animals. The vitality of the Acrita, 

 or animalcules, is, perhaps, more extraordinary than 

 that possessed by any other animals. Many of the 

 aquatic sorts are well known to be raised, as it were, 

 again to life, after they have, to all appearance, died, by 

 merely pouring a few drops of water in the vessel which 

 contained them. The body of a polypes may be cut in 

 every possible direction, the parts dissevered and scat- 

 tered, and yet these grievous wounds, any one of 

 which would prove the death of an insect, so far 

 from having a similar effect upon the polype, becomes, 

 in fact, an artificial mode of reproduction : each frag- 

 ment is a germ of life ; and becomes, in due time, a 

 perfect progeny to the parent. Ascending higher in 

 the scale of being, we find this power diminishing. 

 Reproduction in the testaceous Mollusca is apparently 

 confined to the growth, only, of certain members that 

 may, from accident or design, become mutilated. If 

 one of the tentacula of a snail, for instance, is cut off, 

 the wound will not only heal, but a new one, in process 



