554 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Glanced, but that the animal, being intended to 

 feed upon honey, was, by a peculiar external con- 

 figuration, enabled to procure it ? That, more- 

 over, wanting the honey when it could not be 

 procured at all, it was further endued with the no 

 less necessary faculty of constructing repositories 

 for its preservation ? Which faculty, it is evident, 

 must depend primarily upon the capacity of pro- 

 viding suitable materials. Two distinct functions 

 go to make up the ability. First, the power in 

 the bee, with respect to wax, of loading the farina 

 of flowers upon its thighs. Microscopic observers 

 speak of the spoon-shaped appendages with which 

 the thighs of bees are beset for this very purpose; 

 but, inasmuch as the art and will of the bee may 

 be supposed to be concerned in this operation, 

 there is, secondly, that which doth not rest in art 

 or will — a digestive faculty, which converts the 

 loose powder into a stifle substance. This is a just 

 account of the honey and the honey-comb ; and 

 this account, through every part, carries a creative 

 intelligence along with it.^ 



9j 



^'' It has often been remarked, that Dr. Paley does not either in 

 thia chapter, or in that on instinct, state the most remarkable of 

 all instincts, and of all the labours of insects, the formation -of the 

 cells by the bee, according to the strictest geometrical rules. The 

 history of this discovery made '(through Reaumur's suggestion) 

 by Koenig's application of the fluxional calculus, and by its result 

 being found to tally with Maraldi's measurement, will be given in 

 the Appendix. Maclaurin solved the same problem afterwards 

 by the help of jilaae geometry, with a truly felicitous fikill. The 



