202 DIFFICULTIES ON THEORY. Chap. VI. 



and animals introduced from Europe. Natural selection 

 will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always 

 meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard 

 under nature. The correction for the aberration of 

 light is said, on high authority, not to be perfect even 

 in that most perfect organ, the eye. If our reason 

 leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of 

 inimitable contrivances in nature, this same reason tells 

 us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some 

 other contrivances are less perfect. Can we consider 

 the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect, which, 

 when used against many attacking animals, cannot be 

 withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so 

 inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out 

 its viscera ? 



If we look at the sting of the bee, as having origin- 

 ally existed in a remote progenitor as a boring and 

 serrated instrument, like that in so many members of 

 the same great order, and which has been modified but 

 not perfected for its present purpose, with the poison 

 originally adapted to cause galls subsequently intensi- 

 fied, we can perhaps understand how it is that the use 

 of the sting should so often cause the insect's own 

 death : for if on the whole the power of stinging be 

 useful to the community, it will fulfil all the require- 

 ments of natural selection, though it may cause the 

 death of some few members. If we admire the truly 

 wonderful power of scent by which the males of many 

 insects find their females, can we admire the production 

 for this single purpose of thousands of drones, which are 

 utterly useless to the community for any other end, 

 and which are ultimately slaughtered by their indus- 

 trious and sterile sisters ? It may be difficult, but we 

 ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the 

 queen-bee, which urges her instantly to destroy the 



