The Life of the Bee 
strangely useful and yet incomplete. In 
point of fact, they meet man half-way. Let 
us imagine that we had for centuries past 
been erecting cities, not with stone, bricks, 
and lime, but with some pliable substance pain- 
fully secreted by special organs of our body. 
One day an all-powerful being places us in 
the midst of a fabulous city. We recognise 
that it is made of a substance similar to the 
one that we secrete; but, as regards the 
rest it is a dream, whereof what is logical is 
so distorted, so reduced and, as it were, con- 
centrated, as to be more disconcerting almost 
than had it been incoherent. Our habitual 
plan is there; in fact, we find everything 
that we had expected ; but all has been put 
together by some antecedent force that would 
seem to have crushed it, arrested it in the 
mould, and to have hindered its completion. 
The houses, whose height must attain some 
four or five yards, are the merest protuber- 
ances that our two hands can cover. Thou- 
sands of walls are indicated by signs that 
hint at once of their plan and material. 
Elsewhere there are marked deviations which 
must be corrected, gaps to be filled and 
308 
