Instinct and Discernment 



separable from its nature, the qualities de- 

 manded by its craft: some which are invari- 

 able and belong to the province of instinct; 

 others which are flexible and belong to the 

 province of discernment. To divide a free 

 lodging into chambers by means of mud 

 partitions; to fill these chambers with a 

 heap of pollen-flour, with a few sups of 

 honey in the central part where the egg is to 

 lie; in short, to prepare board and lodging 

 for the unknown, for a family which the 

 mothers have never seen in the past and 

 will never see in the future: this, in its es- 

 sential features, is the function of the Os- 

 mia's instinct. Here, everything is har- ^ 

 moniously, inflexibly, permanently preor- 

 dained; the insect has but to follow its blind 

 impulse to attain the goal. But the free 

 lodging offered by chance varies exceedingly 

 in hygienic conditions, in shape and in ca- 

 pacity. Instinct, which does not choose, 1 

 which does not contrive, would, if it were // 

 alone, leave the insect's existence in peril. 

 To help her out of her predicament, in these 

 complex circumstances, the Osmia possesses 

 her little stock of discernment, which dis- 

 tinguishes between the dry and the wet, the 

 solid and the fragile, the sheltered and the 

 exposed; which recognizes the worth or 

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