NATUBAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 53 



prompted by a true philosophy. Neither our ignorance 

 of all the facts necessary to their full elucidation, nor our 

 inability to harmonize these facts in their mutual relations 

 and dependencies, will justify us in rejecting any truth 

 which God has seen fit to reveal, either in the book of 

 nature, or in His holy word. The man who would substi- 

 tute his own speculations for the divine teachings, has 

 embarked without rudder or chart, pilot or compass, on 

 an uncertain ocean of theory and conjecture ; unless he 

 turns his prow from its fatal course, storms and whirlwinds 

 will thicken in gloom on his " voyage of life ;" no " Sun 

 of Righteousness " will ever brighten for him the expanse 

 of dreary waters ; no favoring gales will waft his shattered 

 bark to a peaceful haven. 



The thoughtful reader will require no apology for this 

 moralizing strain, nor blame a clergyman, if sometimes 

 forgetting to speak as the mere naturalist, he endeavors 

 to find 



" Tongues in trees, books in running brooks, 

 Sermons in ' bees,' and ' God ' in every thing." 



To return to the attempt to account for the existence 

 of so many drones. If a farmer persists in what is called 

 u breeding in and in," that is, without changing the blood, 

 the ultimate degeneracy of his stock is the consequence. 

 This law extends, as far as we know, to all animal life, man 

 himself not being exempt from its influence. Have we 

 any reason to suppose that the bee is an exception? or 

 that degeneracy would not ensue, unless some provision 

 were made to counteract the tendency to "in and in 

 breeding ?" If fecundation had taken place in the hive, 

 the queen would have been impregnated by drones from 

 a common parent ; and the same result must have taken 

 place in each successive generation, until the whole species 



