Insects. 4585 



from a stagnant pond are, in respect of the sense of taste, widely dif- 

 ferent from those of one who revolts at the mere idea of such a repast ? 

 And so of hearing ; who will say that the senses of hearing of an animal 

 on which no sounds seem to make any, far less a pleasant impression, 

 and of one who is ravished or painfully annoyed by certain sounds, are 

 the same ? It may be said that insects have no organs of hearing and 

 tasting, whereby they could appreciate things in the way other animals 

 do, and therefore it proves nothing; but, allowing this, in either case 

 it shows how widely dissimilar in every material particular, in these 

 respects, different creatures are, for if one sense is wholly wanting, why 

 may not another be ? and if the same cause produces pleasure on the 

 one hand and disgust on the other, can their respective sensations be 

 the same ? 



Let us look at the matter in another point of view : it is certain that 

 impaling alive for a length of time and then being released, and many 

 other severe injuries, loss of legs, wings, &c, have no permanent bad 

 effects on insects, neither ultimately destroying nor suspending the main 

 objects of their existence (multiplication of the species being among 

 the chief), and, as I have uoticed above, even the loss of the whole 

 abdomen was not at first perceived, and would not for some time have 

 been fatal, and, if this is so, is not the sole, or, at all events, the prin- 

 cipal reason, as far as we can trace cause and effect, for their being 

 endowed with acute corporeal feelings absent? Such injuries would 

 be, many of them, instantly fatal to warm-blooded animals, and, at any 

 rate, most of them would materially interfere in the carrying out the 

 lot appointed them in the scheme of nature. So here we find as, in 

 tracing out the workings of a benevolent Creator, we should expect to 

 find that such animals are endowed with senses of such a delicacy and 

 acuteness as may warn them at once, on the slightest injury, to avoid 

 the threatening calamity. I conceive, therefore, that it would be to 

 the last degree irreconcileable with what we know of the universal 

 benevolence of God in the creation, to suppose that, without apparently 

 any sufficient reason, myriads on myriads of His creatures, placed in 

 situations peculiarly liable to injury and exposed to violence beyond 

 all others, witness the thousands trodden under foot at every step we 

 take, or destroyed in operations of gardening and husbandry, not to 

 mention the countless swarms, the main end of whose creation appears 

 to be to suffer a violent death, in being devoured as the appointed food 

 of other animals — would it, I say, be reasonable to suppose that these 

 orders are endowed with acute corporeal feelings ? 



With many persons, I am aware, it is sufficient proof of an acute 



