Page - 214 - in The Origin of Species

214 ORIGIN OF SPECIES always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature. The correction for the aberration of Hght is said by Miiller not to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the human eye. Helmholtz, whose judgm.ent no one will dispute, after describing in the strongest terms the won- derful power of the human eye, adds these remarkable words : "That which we have discovered in the way of in- exactness 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 re- move all foundations from the theory of a pre-existing har- mony between the external and internal worlds." 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 con- trivances are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the bee as perfect, which, when used against many kinds of enemies, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward serra- tures, and thus inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?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 that it has since been modified, but not perfected for its present purpose, with the poison originally adapted for some other object, such as to produce galls, since intensified, we can per- haps 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 admire the truly wonderful power of scent by which the males of many insects find their females, can we admire the produc- tion for this single purpose of thousands of drones, which are utterly useless to the community 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