BUFPON— FULLER QUOTATIONS. "3 



animals as form themselves into societies freely and of 

 their own accord, but it involves nothing whatever in 

 the case of bees, who have found themselves thrown 

 together through no effort of their own. Such societies 

 can only be, and it is plain have only been, the results — 

 neither foreseen, nor ordained, nor conceived by those 

 who achieve them — of the universal mechanism and of 

 the laws of movement established by the Creator." * A 

 hive of bees, in fact, is to be considered as composed of 

 "ten thousand animated automata."! Years later he 

 repeats these views with little if any modification. { 

 A still more remarkable passage is to be found a little 

 farther on. " If," he asks, " animals have neither under- 

 standing, mind, nor memory, if they are wholly without 

 intelligence, and if they are limited to the exercise and 

 experience of feeling only," and it must be remembered 

 that Buffon has denied all these powers to the inferior 

 animals, " whence comes that remarkable prescient 

 instinct which so many of them exhibit ? Is the mere 

 power of feeling sensations sufficient to make them 

 gamer up food during the summer, on which food they 

 may subsist in winter? Does not this involve the 

 power of comparing dates, and the idea of a coming 

 future, an * inqtdetude raisonnee ' ? Why do We find 

 in the hole of the field-mouse enough acorns to keep 

 him until the following summer? Why do we find 

 such an abundant store of honey and wax within the 

 bee-hive ? Why do ants store food? Why should birds 

 make nests if they do not know that they will have 



• Tom. iv. p. 98, 1753. t Iljii 



J Tom. viii. p. 283, &o., 1760. 



i 



