The Life of the Bee 



origin and mission as what in animals we 

 choose to term instinct. We do certain 

 things, whose results we conceive to be 

 known to us ; other things happen, and 

 we flatter ourselves that we are better 

 equipped than animals can be to divine 

 their cause ; but, apart from the fact that 

 this supposition rests on no very solid 

 foundation, events of this nature are rare 

 and infinitesimal, compared with the vast 

 mass of others that elude comprehension ; 

 and all, the pettiest and the most sublime, 

 the best known and the most inexplicable, 

 the nearest and the most distant, come to 

 pass in a night so profound that our 

 blindness may well be almost as great as 

 that we suppose in the bee. 



[30] 

 "All must agree," remarks Buffon, 

 who has a somewhat amusing prejudice 

 against the bee, — "all must agree that 



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