202 
DIFFICULTIES ON THEOKY. 
Chap, VI. 
and animals introduced from Europe. Natural selection 
will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always 
meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard 
under nature. The correction for the aberration of 
light is said, on high authority, not to be perfect even 
in that most perfect organ, the eye. If our reason 
leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of 
inimitable contrivances in nature, this same reason tells 
us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some 
other contrivances are less perfect. Can we consider 
the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect, which, 
when used against many attacking animals, cannot be 
withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so 
inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out 
its viscera ? 
If we look at the sting of the bee, as having origin¬ 
ally existed in a remote progenitor as a boring and 
serrated instrument, like that in so many members of 
the same great order, and which has been modified but 
not perfected for its present purpose, with the poison 
originally adapted to cause galls subsequently intensi¬ 
fied, 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 community, it will fulfil all the require¬ 
ments 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 end, 
and which are ultimately slaughtered by their indus¬ 
trious and sterile sisters ? It may be difficult, but we 
ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the 
queen-bee, which urges her instantly to destroy the 
