256 UTILITARIAN DOCTRINE, HOW FAR TRUE: 



against many kinds of enemies, cannot be withdrawn, 

 owing to the backward serratures, and thus inevi- 

 tably 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 per- 

 fected for its present purpose, with the poison origi- 

 nally adapted for some other object, such as to produce 

 galls, since intensiiied, 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 social community, it will fulfil 

 all the requirements of natural selection, though it 

 may cause the death of some few members. If we ad- 

 mire the truly wonderful power of scent by which the 

 males of many insects find their females, can we ad- 

 mire the production for this single purpose of thou- 

 sands of drones, which are utterly useless to the com- 

 munity 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 un- 

 doubtedly this is for the good of the community; 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 elaboration of 



