76 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONBT BEB. 



do or to teach ? Give me the same latitude claimed by such 

 objectors, and I can easily prove that a man is under no 

 obligation to receive as true, any of the wonders in the 

 economy of the bee-hive, even although he is himself an in- 

 telligent eye-witness that they are all substantial verities. 



I shall quote, in this connection, from Huish, an English 

 Apiarian, whose objections to the discoveries of Huber, so 

 forcibly resemble many which are urged against the doc- 

 trines of revealed religion. 



"If an individual, with the view of acquiring some knowl- 

 edge of the natural history of the bee, or of its management, 

 consult the works of Bagster, Bevan, or any of the periodi- 

 cals which casually treat upon the subject, will he not rise 

 from the study of them with his mind surcharged with falsi- 

 ties and mystification .' Will he not discover through the 

 whole of them a servile acquiescence in the opinions and 

 discoveries of one man, however at variance they may be 

 with truth or probability ; and if he enter upon the discussion 

 with his mind free from prejudice, will he not experience 

 that an outrage has been committed upon his reason, in call- 

 ing upon him to give assent to positions and principles which 

 at best are merely assumed, but to which he is called upon 

 dogmatically to subscribe his acquiescence as the indubitable 

 results of experience, skill and ability ? The editors of the 

 works above alluded to, should boldly and indignantly have 

 declared, that from iheir own experience in the natural 

 economy of the insect, they were able to pronounce the cir- 

 cumstances as related by Huber to be directly impossible, 

 and the whole of them based on fiction and imposition." 



Let the reader change only a few words in this extract : 

 for " the natural history of the bee, or its management," 

 let him write, " the subject of revealed religion ;" for, " the 

 works of Bagster, Bevan," &c., let him put, " the works of 



