The Life of the Bee 
standing, as all symbols must, for a vaster 
although less perceptible principle ; and this 
principle the apiarist will do well to take 
into account, if he would not expose him- 
self to more than one unexpected reverse. 
For the bees are by no means deluded. The 
presence of the queen does not blind them 
to the existence of their veritable sovereign, 
immaterial and everlasting, which is no other 
than their fixed idea. Why inquire as to 
whether this idea be conscious or not? Such 
speculation can have value only if our 
anxiety be to determine whether our admira- 
tion should more properly go to the bees 
that have the idea, or to nature that has 
planted it in them. Wherever it lodge, in 
the vast unknowable body, or in the tiny 
ones that we see, it merits our deepest 
attention; nor may it be out of place here 
to observe that it is the habit we have of 
subordinating our wonder to accidents of 
origin or place, that so often causes us to 
lose the chance of deep admiration, which 
of all things in the world is the most helpful 
to us. 
74 
