122 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



male and female principle that thus comes to pass in her being. 

 Here again nature, never so ingenious, so cunningly prudent 

 and diverse as when contriving her snares of love, will not 

 have failed to provide a certain pleasure as a bait in the 

 interest of the species. — And yet let us pause for a moment, 

 and not become the dupes of our own explanation. For 

 indeed, to attribute an idea of this kind to nature, and regard 

 that as sufficient, is like flinging a stone into an unfathom- 

 able gulf we may find in the depths of a grotto, and imagining 

 that the sound it creates as it falls shall answer our every 

 question, or reveal to us aught beside the immensity of the 

 abyss. 



When we say to ourselves, " This thing is of nature's 

 devising ; it is she has ordained this marvel ; those are her 

 desires that we see before us," the truth is merely that our 

 special attention has been drawn to some tiny manifestation 

 of life upon the boundless sui'face of matter that we deem 

 inactive, and choose to describe, with evident inaccuracy, as 

 nothingness and death. A purely fortuitous chain of events 

 has allowed this special manifestation to attract our attention ; 

 but a thousand others, no less interesting, perhaps, and in- 

 formed with no less intelligence, have vanished, not meeting 

 with a like good fortune, and have lost for ever the chance 

 of exciting our wonder. It were rash to affirm aught beside ; 

 and all that remains — our reflections, our obstinate search for 

 the final cause, our admiration and hopes — all these in truth 

 are no more than our feeble cry as, in the depths of the 

 unknown, we clash against what is more unknowable still ; 

 and this feeble cry declares the highest degree of individual 

 existence attainable for us on this mute and impenetrable 



