The Life of the Bee 
in geologic succession and the geographic 
distribution of organised beings, in mutual 
affinities, as indeed in every other direction, 
the idea of Nature reveals itself in one and 
the same phenomenon, and at the very same 
time, as circumspect and shiftless, niggard 
and prodigal, prudent and careless, fickle 
and stable, agitated and immovable, one and 
innumerable, magnificent and squalid. There 
lay open before her the immense and virgin 
fields of simplicity; she chose to people 
them with trivial errors, with petty contra- 
dictory laws that stray through existence 
like a flock of blind sheep. It is true that 
our eye, before which these things happen, 
can only reflect a reality proportionate to our 
needs and our stature; nor have we any war- 
rant for believing that Nature ever loses sight 
of her wandering results and causes. 
In any event she will rarely permit them 
to stray too far, or approach illogical or 
dangerous regions. She disposes of two 
forces that can never err; and when the 
phenomenon shall have trespassed beyond 
certain limits, she will beckon to life or to 
death—which arrives, re-establishes order, 
252 
