50 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



wherein it were wise perhaps to speak of the bee, is there 

 very much more we could say ? He too yields only to 

 necessity, the attraction of pleasure and the fear of suffering ; 

 and what we call our intellect has the same 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 causes ; 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. 



3° 



" All must agree," remarks Buffon, who has a somewhat 

 amusing prejudice against the bee ; " all must agree that these 

 flies, individually considered, possess far less genius than the 

 dog, the monkey, or the majority of animals ; that they display 

 far less docility, attachment, or sentiment ; that they have, 

 in a word, less qualities that relate to our own ; and from 

 that we may conclude that their apparent intelligence derives 

 only from their assembled multitude ; nor does this union 

 even argue intelligence, for it is governed by no moral con- 

 siderations, it being without their consent that they find 

 themselves gathered together. This society, therefore, is no 

 more than a physical assemblage ordained by nature, and 



