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We cannot possibly attribute to them such combinations of 

 ideas, and such judgment, as a more perfect, or, at least, a 

 more complicated organization allows to other animals. The 

 insects seem to possess, when born, all the knowledge which 

 their destination requires, and which is composed of a certain 

 number of ideas relative to their wants and the employment 

 of their organs. The circle of their actions is traced out : 

 they cannot pass beyond it. This natural disposition, which 

 fits them for exercising, in a determined and constant manner, 

 all that is necessary for the preservation of their lives and 

 the propagation of their race, is what is usually termed in- 

 stinct. They can have no better guide. Too transitory on 

 the scene of nature, they have neither time to deliberate nor 

 to profit by the lessons of experience. Their races would 

 soon become extinct, if there were no better agent employed in 

 their preservation than the acquired knowledge of experience. 

 The bee is scarcely more than born when it begins to apply 

 itself to labour, and to exhibit the talents of the most accom- 

 plished artist, to execute in the most exact and regular propor- 

 tions, without any model, and without the least hesitation, a 

 work which pre-supposes calculations of the higher geometry, 

 and which a skilful mechanician could not perform but after 

 long trials, and with instruments of which the bee is de- 

 prived. Even were this insect provided with them, it would be 

 impossible for it to construct, beforehand, its alveoli in suitable 

 proportions to the number of the future population, which it 

 cannot foresee, and to give to those which are destined to con- 

 tain the male and female eggs the requisite size for those in- 

 dividuals not yet in existence. But Nature has been the pre- 

 ceptor of the bee, and has formed her a geometrician. We even 

 see among men certain individuals bom with happy dispositions 

 for the mechanical arts, and excelling in them without having 

 had the advantage of a master. The most just and inge- 

 nious ideas, which are, in general, the result of meditation. 



