| → on high authority, 1859 1860 1861 |
| by Müller 1866 1869 1872 |
|
| ↑ 2 blocks not present in 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869; present in 1872 |
| Helmholtz, whose judgment no one will dispute, after describing in the strongest terms the wonderful powers of the human eye, adds these remarkable words:
"That which we have discovered in the way of inexactness and imperfection in the optical machine and in the image on the retina, is as nothing in comparison with the incongruities which we have just come across in the domain of the sensations. One might say that nature has taken delight in accumulating contradictions in order to remove all foundation from the theory of a pre-existing harmony between the external and internal worlds."
|
|
| → wasp or of the 1859 1860 1861 |
| OMIT 1866 1869 1872 |
|
| → attacking animals, 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
| kinds of enemies, 1872 |
|
| → which has 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
| that it has since 1872 |
|
| → to cause galls subsequently 1859 1860 |
| for some purpose, such as to produce galls, subsequently 1861 1866 |
| for some other purpose, such as to produce galls, subsequently 1869 |
| for some other object, such as to produce galls, since 1872 |
|
|
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
→on high authority,
not to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the
↑ If our reason
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
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cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and
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 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
intensified, we can perhaps
how it is that the use of the sting should so often cause the
own death: for if on the whole the power of stinging be useful to the
it will
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
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
|
