| Comparison with 1860 |
|
|
would make a comb as perfect as that of the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economising wax.
|
|
Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, that of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of simpler instincts; natural selection having
by slow degrees, more and more perfectly,
led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given distance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and excavate the wax along the planes of intersection. The
bees, of course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one particular distance from each other, than they know what are the several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic plates.
The
motive power of the process of natural selection having been economy of wax;
that individual swarm which wasted least
honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having transmitted by inheritance its
newly acquired
economical instinct
to new swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle for existence. ↑| Subtitle not present 1859 1860 1861 |
| Objections
to
the
Theory
of
Natural
Selection
as
applied
to
Instincts:
Neuter
and
Sterile
Insects
.
1866 1869 1872 |
| 1 blocks not present in 1859 1860; present in 1866 1869 1872 1861 | | It has been objected to the foregoing view on
the origin of instinct
that "the variations of structure and of instinct must have been simultaneous and accurately adjusted to each other, as a modification in the one without an immediate corresponding change in the other would have been fatal." The force of this objection seems
entirely to rest
on the assumption that the changes in both
instinct
and structure are abrupt.
|
|
|
| No doubt many instincts of very difficult explanation could be opposed to the theory of natural selection,—
cases, in which we cannot see how an instinct could possibly
have originated; cases, in which no intermediate gradations are known to exist; cases of instinct of apparently
such trifling importance, that they could hardly have been acted on by natural selection; cases of instincts almost identically the same in animals so remote in the scale of nature, that we cannot account
|
would make a comb as perfect as that of the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economising
wax. | wax. 1859 1860 1861 |
| labour and wax. 1866 1869 1872 |
|
|
Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, that of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of simpler instincts; natural selection
having | having 1859 1860 1861 1866 | | having, 1869 1872 |
| perfectly, 1859 1860 1861 1866 | | perfectly 1869 1872 |
| intersection. 1859 1860 1861 | | intersection; 1866 1869 1872 |
| The 1859 1860 1861 | | the 1866 1869 1872 |
| plates. 1859 1860 |
| plates. The motive power of the process of natural selection having been economy of wax, together with cells of due strength, and of the proper size and shape for the larvæ; that individual swarm which made the best cells, and wasted least honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having transmitted by inheritance their newly acquired economical instincts to new swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle for existence. 1861 |
| plates; 1866 1869 1872 |
| The 1859 1860 | | the 1866 1869 1872 |
| economy of wax; 1859 1860 |
| the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper size and shape for the larvæ, this being effected with the greatest possible economy of was and labour; 1866 |
| the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper size and shape for the larvæ, this being effected with the greatest possible economy of labour and wax; 1869 1872 |
| wasted least 1859 1860 |
| thus made the best cells with least labour, and least waste of 1866 1869 1872 |
| by inheritance its 1859 1860 |
| by inheritance their 1866 1869 |
| their 1872 |
| newly acquired 1859 1860 1866 | | newly-acquired 1869 1872 |
| instinct 1859 1860 | | instincts 1866 1869 1872 |
| Subtitle not present 1859 1860 1861 |
| Objections
to
the
Theory
of
Natural
Selection
as
applied
to
Instincts:
Neuter
and
Sterile
Insects
.
1866 1869 1872 |
| 1 blocks not present in 1859 1860; present in 1866 1869 1872 1861 | | It has been objected to the foregoing view on
the origin of instinct
that "the variations of structure and of instinct must have been simultaneous and accurately adjusted to each other, as a modification in the one without an immediate corresponding change in the other would have been fatal." The force of this objection seems
entirely to rest
on the assumption that the changes in both
instinct
and structure are abrupt.
|
|
|
No doubt many instincts of very difficult explanation could be opposed to the theory of natural
selection,— | selection,— 1859 1860 1861 1866 | | selection— 1869 1872 |
| possibly 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 | possibly 1872 |
| apparently 1859 1860 1861 1866 | apparently 1869 1872 |
|
