PHYSIOLOGY. 57 



our inability to harmonize these facts in their mutual rela- 

 tions and dependencies, will justify us in rejecting any truth 

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

 ture, or in His holy word. The man who would substitute 

 his own speculations for the divine teachings, has embarked, 

 without rudder or chart, pilot or compass, upon the uncer- 

 tain ocean of theory and conjecture ; unless he turns his 

 prow frdm its fatal course, no Sun of Righteousness will 

 ever brighten for him the dreary expanse of waters ; storms 

 and whirlwinds will thicken in gloom, on his " voyage of 

 life," and no favoring gales will ever waft his shattered 

 bark to a peaceful haven. 



The thoughtful reader will require no apology for the 

 moralizing strain of many of my remarks, nor blame a 

 clergyman, if forgetting, sometimes to speak as the mere 

 naturalist, he endeavors to find, 



"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

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



To return to the point from which I have digressed ; a new 

 attempt to account for the existence of so many drones. If a 

 farmer persists in what is called " breeding in and in," that is, 

 from the same stock without changing the blood, it is well 

 known that a rapid degeneracy is the inevitable consequence. 

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

 even man is not exempt from its influence. Have we any 

 reason to suppose that the bee is an exception } or that ulti- 

 mate degeneracy would not ensue, unless some provision 

 was made to counteract the tendency to in and in breeding .' 

 If fecundation had taken place in the hive, the queen bee 

 must of necessity, 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 would 

 eventually have " run out." By the present arrangement, 

 the young females, when they leave the hive, often find the 



