294 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



impressed on the brain. The statements of BufTon 

 are equally fanciful. 



" Bees," he says, " are associated without design 

 or motive ; for whatever may be the effects of their 

 association, it is clear that they have neither been 

 foreseen nor conceived by the creatures that produced 

 them, and that they result solely from universal laws 

 of mechanism established by the Almighty. Suppose 

 ten thousand automatons assembled in the same 

 place, all endowed with the same force, and deter- 

 mined by a perfect resemblance in their external and 

 internal structure, and by a uniformity in their move- 

 ment, to perform the same operation, a regular work 

 would be the necessary result. They would exhibit 

 the relations of regularity, of resemblance, and of 

 position ; because these depend upon the relations of 

 motion, which we have supposed to be equal and 

 uniform. The relations of juxta-position, of exten- 

 sion, and of figure, would also appear, because we 

 have supposed a given and circumscribed place ; and, 

 if we bestow on these automatons the smallest degree 

 of sensation, just as much as is necessary to make 

 them feel their existence, to have a tendency to self- 

 preservation, to avoid what is hurtful, to desire what 

 is agreeable, &c., their operations will be not only 

 regular, proportioned, similar, and equal, but they 

 will have the air of the highest symmetry, solidity, 

 convenience, &c. ; because, in the process of their 

 labours, each of the ten thousand individuals has 

 assumed that arrangement which was most commo- 

 dious to itself, and has, at .the same time, been obliged 

 to act and to arrange itself in the manner least in- 

 commodious to the rest. 



" Shall I enforce this argument still further. The 

 hexagonal cells of the bee, which have been the sub- 

 ject of so much admiration, furnish an additional 

 proof of the stupidity of these insects. This figure, 



