256 UTILITAEIAN DOCTRINE, HOW FAR TRUE: 



when used against many kinds of enemies, cannot be 

 withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and thus 

 inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out 

 its viscera ? 



If we look at the sting of the bee, as having existed 

 in a remote progenitor, as a boring and serrated instru- 

 ment, like that in so many members of the same Great 

 order, and that it has since been modified but not 

 perfected for its present purpose, with the poison 

 originally adapted for some other object, such as to 

 produce galls, since intensified, we can perhaps under- 

 stand 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 social community, it 

 will fulfil all the requirements 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 purpose, and which are 

 ultimately slaughtered by their industrious and sterile 

 sisters ? It may be difficult, but we ought to admire 

 the savage instinctive hatred of the queen-bee, which 

 urges her to destroy the young queens, her daughters, 

 as soon as they are born, or to perish herself in the 

 combat ; for undoubtedly this is for the good of the com- 

 munity ; and maternal love or maternal hatred, though 

 the latter fortunately is most rare, is all the same to the 

 inexorable principle of natural selection. If we admire 

 the several ingenious contrivances, by which orchids 

 and many other plants are fertilised through insect 

 agency, can we consider as equally perfect the elabora- 



