GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. B5 



In speaking of the antennm and palpi, I have called 

 them sensiferous organs. The organ necessarily implies 

 the perception^ or whatever it may be, conveyed to the 

 sensorium through its means, this being the receptacle 

 of the sensation or idea, the external organ communi- 

 cates. It is thus that activity is given to a power of 

 discrimination, and consequently of election or rejection 

 by the creature. This sensorium, in the higher animals, 

 is the brain ; and in the lower, where the nervous system 

 is very differently constituted, a ganglion, or knot of 

 nervous substance. That this brain, or ganglion, is the 

 power exercising the control, may not be admitted, 

 although it is there that our research compulsively ter- 

 minates. The power itself is essentially spiritual, acting 

 through a material agent, and may be an efflux of this 

 nervous mass. Whether it cease with the death of the 

 organ, we have no means of knowing. That it may be 

 in some way analogous in nature to the human mind, 

 but to a limited extent, there is reason to surmise. This 

 power, in its collective capacity, is called Instinct. 

 This instinct is a faculty whose clear comprehension and 

 lucid definition seem impossible to our understanding. 

 Its attributes are very various, and its operations are 

 always all but perfect. It is an almost unerring guide 

 to the creature exercising it, and is as fully developed 

 on its awakening as is, and with it, the imago upon its 

 transformation. 



Although observation has thought to have detected 

 that experience sometimes uses a selection of means, and 

 thus occasionally modifies the rigid exercise of the faculty, 

 by adapting itself to the force of circumstances, it, when 

 so, evidently assumes a higher character than has been 

 willingly accorded to it. This instinct teaches the just 



