Insects. 4587 



blooded animals, taking man as their type, and cold-blooded animals, 

 insects in particular, as serving our present purpose, it seems im- 

 possible to conclude that their respective corporeal sensations are in 

 any degree similar, but, on the contrary, the comparison points to the 

 most extreme amount of dissimilarity. 



Secondly, from a state of coma, induced by magnetism, being 

 favourable to insensibility of pain in ourselves, it is evidently not 

 absurd to suppose insects devoid of feeling, since they may possibly 

 be by nature under some such influence. 



Nor, thirdly, is it absurd to suppose them devoid of, or at any rate 

 with but a very low state of the sense of feeling, since many like senses 

 are in other creatures of such different intensity, and probably 

 some senses occasionally absent altogether, or recompensed by others 

 totally different ! 



Fourthly, from a comparison of the ultimate effects of injuries on 

 the different orders of creation, the chief reason for being endowed 

 with acute feelings appears, from considerations also of divine bene- 

 volence, to be absent, and therefore it does not seem unreasonable to 

 conclude the absence of such feeling ! 



Fifthly, from the fact of a high temperature of body being con- 

 nected with sensibility in ourselves, its absence would appear to show 

 a want of sensibility in insects ! 



Sixthly, from a physiological comparison of their composition and 

 internal and external organization with that of other creatures, it is 

 highly probable that insects have little or no feeling whatever. 



Seventhly, from a consideration of the circumstances connected 

 with the struggling and writhing of insects impaled alive, it would not 

 be reasonable to connect it with an acute sense of feeling. 



I have given no authorities for any physiological positions I may 

 have advanced, for what I have now written has been in the absence 

 of works on the subject to which I could refer, and is therefore chiefly 

 from recollection of former reading and personal observations, so that 

 should there be any erroneous or dogmatic assertions I shall be too 

 happy to have them pointed out and corrected ; and, in fact, my prin- 

 cipal reason for broaching the subject at all is to invite discussion, and 

 to endeavour to draw forth the opinions of good scientific anatomists 

 and physiologists. 



I fancy now that I hear some one say that it will prove anything 

 but a boon to the insect world to show them to be destitute of acute 

 feeling — that the thoughtless will have no reason to be more thought- 



