468 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
structure: and he gravely tells us that the boasted hex- 
agonal cells of bees are produced by the reciprocal pres- 
sure of the cylindrical bodies of these insects against each 
other ?!! 
Nor is it requisite to advert at length to the explana- 
tions of instinctive actions more recently given by Stef- 
fens, a German author (one of the transcendentalists, I 
conclude, from the incomprehensibility of his book to 
my ordinary intellect), who says that the products of the 
vaunted instinct of insects are nothing but “ shootings 
out of inorganic animal masses” (anorgische anschiisse)® ; 
and by Lamarck‘, who attributes them to certain inhe- 
rent inclinations arising from habits impressed upon the 
organs of the animals concerned in producing them, by 
the constant efflux towards these oergans of the nervous 
fluid, which during a series of ages has been displaced 
in their endeavours to perform certain actions. which 
their necessities have given birth to. The mere state- 
ment of an hypothesis of which the enunciation is nearly ~ 
unintelligible, and built upon the assumption of the 
presence of an unseen fluid, and of the existence of the 
animal some millions of years, is quite sufficient, and 
would even be unnecessary if it were not of such late 
origin. Neither shall I detain you with any formal con- 
sideration of the hypothesis advanced by Addison and 
a Hist. Nat. Edit. 1785, v. 277. 
» Beitrige zur innern Naturgeschichte der Erde 1801, p. 298. 
© In his Philosophie Zoologique, Paris 1809 (ii. 325)—a work which 
every zoologist will, [ think, join with me in regretting should be 
devoted to metaphysical disquisitions built on the most gratuitous as- 
sumptions, instead of comprising that luminous generalization of facts 
relative to the animal world which is so great a disideratum, and 
for performing which satisfactorily this eminent naturalist is so well 
qualified. 
