Insects. 1563 



from a desire to escape. I am aware it is difficult to prove by what 

 cause its struggles began, but that is no reason w T hy we are to take 

 refuge in Mr. Turner's assumption, and deny, contrary to natural in- 

 ductions that they took place from the desire to escape, and pain com- 

 bined, particularly when we have seen (thanks to Mr. Turner's own 

 observations) that the struggles were violent when the pin was actually 

 in the wound, and therefore irritating it ; but that they altogether 

 ceased when the exciting cause was removed ! 



Suppose Mr. John Smith (I beg to assure Mr. Turner that I have 

 no reference whatever to him in this general and comprehensive 

 name) ; suppose Mr. John Smith, I repeat, or anybody else was im- 

 paled to the trunk of a tree by a large iron-bar, or skewer, fixed 

 through the very centre of his body ; and suppose this was done 

 while he chanced to be " asleep " against that tree. Like many in- 

 sects he would instantly awake and kick vigorously. But why does 

 he kick ? From the mere change of position caused by the pressure 

 of insertion ? Certainly not. I am aware he would be very glad to get 

 away, — i. e. to say, he would have an earnest desire " to escape f* but 

 is this the only reason why Mr. John Smith kicks ? No ! Doubtless 

 there is another; he is also in pain. A bystander may assume if he 

 pleases that he simply kicks to escape, but inductive reasoning at once 

 assures us that the cause is twofold. And so it is with impaled 

 Lepidoptera. The struggles there also proceed from a twofold cause, 

 although, as we have before stated, the warmest advocates of insect 

 sensibility will not contend that those causes, when compared with 

 the former case, are anything but small. 



We have thus examined Mr. Turner's facts ; and shown, that, al- 

 though they are correct in statement (t. e. so far as the observed pro- 

 gress of the impaled insects is concerned), the deductions which he 

 draws from his observations are unnatural, and therefore erroneous. 

 And, after assuming, contrary to natural inductions and plain, un- 

 biassed reasoning, the critical part of the whole problem, — viz., that 

 the struggles in question were produced solely from a desire to es- 

 cape ; and after expressing his intentions of being " content with ei- 

 ther " of the extraordinary causes he has suggested, by way of ac- 

 counting for observed facts, he gravely adds that he considers them 

 quite as conclusive as the following argument : " Insects contain neu- 

 rine, — Mr. Wollaston cannot (t. e. from his own confession) separate 

 feeling fiomneurine; ergo, insects feel, and consequently have a sense 

 of pain." Now, since he asserts with such evident compassion that 

 " Mr. Wollaston cannot separate feeling from neurine," I would simply 



