The Life of the Bee 
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 
we should more rightly admire the bees 
that have the idea, or 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. 
[29 ] 
These conjectures may perhaps be re- 
garded as exceedingly venturesome, and 
possibly also as unduly human. It may 
be urged that the bees, in all probability, 
go 
