THE BEETLES VIEW OF LIFE. 243 



knot of nerve-matter, it is true, is generally to be 

 found in the neighbourhood of the sense-organs, and 

 it receives direct nerve-bundles from the eyes, 

 antennse, mouth, and other chief adjacent parts ; but 

 the wings and legs are moved by separate knots of 

 nerve-cells, connected by a sort of spinal cord with 

 the head, but capable of acting quite independently 

 on their own account. Thus, if we cut off a wasp's 

 head and stick it on a needle in front of some sugar 

 and water, the mouth will greedily begin to eat the 

 sweet syrup, apparently unconscious of the fact that 

 it has lost its stomach, and that the food is quietly 

 dropping out of the gullet at the other end as fast 

 as it is swallowed. So, too, if we decapitate that 

 queer Mediterranean insect, the Praying Mantis, the 

 headless body will still stand catching flies with its 

 outstretched arms, and fumbling about for its mouth 

 when it has caught one, evidently much surprised to 

 find that its head is unaccountably missing. In fact, 

 whatever may be the case with man, the insect, at 

 least, is really a conscious automaton. It sees or 

 smells food, and is at once impelled by its nervous 

 constitution to eat it. It receives a sense-impression 

 from the bright hue of a flower, and it is irresistibly 

 attracted towards it, as the moth is to the candle. It 

 has no power of deliberation, no ability even to move 

 its own limbs in unaccustomed manners. Its whole 

 life is governed for it by its fixed nervous constitution, 

 and by the stimulations it receives from outside. 

 And so, though the world probably appears much 



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