Chap. VI. BE.VUTY HOW ACQUIKKD. 197 



advantagccous. After the lapse of time, under changing con- 

 ditions of life, if any part comes to be injurious, it will be modi- 

 fied; or, if it be not so, the being will become extinct, as 

 myriads have become extinct. 



Natural selection tends only to make each organic being as 

 perfect as, or sliglitly more perfect than, the other inliabitants 

 of the same country with which it has to struggle for existence. 

 And we see that this is the degree of perfection attained under 

 nature. Tlie endemic productions of New Zealand, for instance, 

 are perfect one compared with another; but tlicy are now 

 rapidly yielding before the advancing legions of ])lants and 

 animals introduced from Europe. Natural selection will nc»t 

 produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as 

 we can judge, with tliis high standard under nature. The cor- 

 rection for the al)erration of light is said by !Mliller not to be 

 perfect even in that most perfect organ, the human eye. If our 

 •reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of in- 

 imitable contrivances 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 per- 

 fect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot 

 be withdrawn, owing to the backward scrratures, and so inevi 

 tably causes the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera ? 



if we look at the sting of the bee, as having originally ex- 

 isted in a remote progenitor as a boring and serrated instru- 

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

 and wliich has been modified but not perfected for its present 

 purjiose, with the poison originally adapted for some other 

 pur[)ose, such as to produce galls, subsequently intensified, mo 

 can ]ierhaps 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 conununity, 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 

 ditVicult, Init 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 l)orn, or to perish herself in the combat ; 

 for undoubtedly this is for the good of the community ; and 



