The Life of the Bee 
existence there under the title of an 
exception. 
For the fact is that in hybridity, in 
variability (notably in the simultaneous 
variations known as correlations of growth), 
in instinct, in the processes of vital com- 
petition, in geologic succession and the 
geographic distribution of organised be- 
ings, in mutual affinities, as indeed in 
every other direction, the idea of nature 
reveals itself, in one and the same phe- 
nomenon 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 contradictory laws that stray through 
existence like a flock of blind sheep. It 
is true that our eye, before which these 
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