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A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS

ON THE

PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE.

MANY centuries ago, when the beings now known to scientific men as Radiata, Mollusca, and Vertebrata did not. exist on the earth, on the twenty-first day of June, in the year one million six hundred and seventeen before our era, there was a great scientific convention of Bumblebees (Apis bombax) in a little corner of a valley in the Jura mountains. I know not how the place is now called, its latitude and longitude have not been ascertained; but then it was named Bumbloonia; a great town was it and a famous. I think this was not the first convention of Bumblebees, nor the last certainly there must have been many before it, probably also many after it, for such a spirit of investigation could not have been got up of a sudden, nor could it at once disappear and go down for ever. Possibly such scientific meetings went on in a progressive development for many centuries. But, alas! it is of this alone that the records have come down to us; none told the tale of the others.

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique, longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro!

It is not quite easy to determine the affinity of the Bumblebee language used at that meeting: yet it seems to have analogies with the Caucasian, with both the Shemitish and the Indo-Germanic branches thereof; nay, some learned men have found or fancied a close resemblance to the dialect now in current use among German philosophers and professors, especially those of the Hegelian stripe. But I confess I have found the Bumblebee style a little clearer than that of the modern professors. However, I must pass over all these philological questions, interesting and important as they are. The meeting was conducted after much the same fashion as are congresses of the learned in these days. There were four or five hundred members, who met in general assembly,

and had a celebrated Bumblebee for their president, vicepresidents and secretaries abounded. There were also sections devoted to special departments of science-Palæontology, Entomology, Zoology, Physiology, Geology, Botany, Astronomy, Mathematics pure and mixed; nay, Metaphysics were not neglected. Every section had its appropriate officers. These savants had their entertainments not less than their severe studies: several excursions were made to places remarkable for their beauty or their sublimity, or for some rare phenomenon of animate or inanimate nature. Rich persons, nobles, and even Bumblebee princesses and queens honoured the convention, sometimes by the physical presence of their distinguished personality, sometimes by inviting the naturalist to a repast upon choice flowers, or on honey of delicious flavour already stored up for winter. Once the whole assembly visited the palace of the Bumblebee Empress-Bombacissima CXLVII.-and admired it as much as if her subjects had not built it for this long descended creature, but she had made it herself. She conferred the order of the LONG STING on the president: an honour never given to any Bumblebee savant before! Patriotic and scientific songs were sung at their dinners, and the Bumblebees were as merry over their simple food as Homer's heroes have since been over their beef, or as modern naturalists with their icecreams and their wine. To their honour be it spoken, no savant required to be helped to his place of sleep after dinner, or was left unsupported and insupportable under the table; but when night drew on they went each to his several place of repose, in a pumpkin blossom-which was the favourite resort-or under a leaf -or to some other convenient shelter. Yet I am sorry to relate, that little jealousies and rivalries, heart-burnings, and the disposition to steal another's discovery prevailed at Bumbloonia in the year B. c. 1,000,617 nearly as much as they have since done with the two-legged mammals who now-a-days take their place.

On the last and great day of the meeting it was announced that by special desire the president would conclude the session with a brief speech on some matter of great importance to the interests of all science. He was the most distinguished savant in the world of Bumblebees, old, famous alike for his original genius and his acquired learning; he

was regarded as the sum of actual knowledge, the incarnation of all science, the future possible as well as the present actual. Besides, he would wear the splendid decoration of the order of the Long Sting-never seen in a scientific convention before, and be addressed as MOST MAGNIFICENT DRONE," the title of the highest nobility, members of the Imperial family! His speech was waited for with obvious and yet decorous impatience. At the appointed hour the sections broke up, though without confusion, and the members crowded about him greedy of knowledge: even to have heard might one day be a distinction. He was conducted to the tip of a mullein leaf (Verbascum Thapso-Lychnitis), while his audience below hummed and buzzed and clapped their wings and their antennæ with applause; nay, some briskly snapped their mandibles together with great and enthusiastic admiration. After order was restored, the great philosopher of the year B. c. 1,000,617 stretched out his feelers, and thus began:

Illustrious audience! It is the greatest honour of my life, already oppressed with much more than I deserve, that in my old age I am allowed to preside over this distinguished body, and still more myself to address these assembled sections before we separate. For what do I now behold? I see before me the congregated talent, learning, and even genius of all the world. Here are travellers who have skirted every zone; Geologists who understand the complicated structure of the soil beneath our feet to the depth of nearly an inch; Astronomers familiar with the entire heavens; Botanists, Zoologists, Physiologists, Chemists, who know all things between the earth beneath and the heavens above; Philologists, understanding the origin and meaning, the whence, the wherefore, and the whither of every word in our wonderful language; and perhaps more remarkable than all else, here are Metaphysicians that have analyzed all the facts of consciousness or of unconsciousness which are known or not known to the Bumblebee. There was never such an assembly! Old, oppressed with the importance of my position and its solemn responsibilities, your presence overawes me! I can scarcely control my own emotions of admiration and esteem. [Great sensation.] Shall I proceed? shall I be silent? But wherefore am I here? Is it not to speak? I would fain listen, but obedient to your

command, I am compelled to the more ungrateful course. What shall I touch upon? No subject would be out of place in such an assembly, born to such diversity of talents and bred to such largeness of wisdom. But I ought to select a theme so deep and so wide that it shall be attractive to all and worthy likewise of this august occasion. So, O ye Bumblebees, I shall deliver

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS ON THE PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE.

I separate the Universe into two parts: the world of matter, wherein organization and reflection are the highest forms of activity; and the world of mind, where there are also life and thought. In the one the antithesis is only between motion and rest, growth and decay, formation and decomposition: in the other it is between life and death, progress and regress, truth and falsehood.

I. I thus dispose of the world of matter. There are four primitive substances or elements, out of which all other things are made, earth, water, light, heat: these are made known to us by the senses. Some Bumblebees have indeed suspected the existence of a fifth element, to which they give the name of "air.” But I think its existence has never been proved, nor even shown to be probable. From the nature of the Bumblebee mind it is plain there can be but four primitive and indivisible substances; for this I might appeal merely to the many distinguished metaphysicians I see before me, and the question would be settled at once by the à priori method. But I take another road, and appeal only to common sense. I put the question: did any of you ever see the air, ever hear it, feel it, taste it, smell it? None: no, not one! It lacks the evidence of the senses, the only organs by which the Bumblebee holds communion with the world of matter. I know it is asked how can you then fly without "air" to support you? I answer -we fly on our wings! [Loud laughter and great applause.] Let "air" justify its existence, and I admit it; not till

then.

Now, gentlemen, these elements are not thrown together without order: there is a certain ascending ratio to be noticed among them. Thus at the bottom of all is earth, the

most gross, the most intractable of all, yet the basis on which all things rest. I hold this to be the oldest element, yet so imperfect is our knowledge of nature, even now, that we are not yet sure of the fact! Next is water, pliant, moveable, capable of many forms, a step above earth. It is also the great nursery of life. Third comes light; and highest of all is heat. This completes the handsome scale: earth is at one end, visible, tangible, audible, palpable, odorizable, subject to any sense; heat is at the other, so delicate in its nature that it is cognizable only by a single sense. [Cheers.]

Of these four elements are all things compounded-rocks, trees, the blossom of the clover we feed upon, and that of the pumpkin we often sleep in; nay, the proud and costly magnificence of the palaces we build, and the delicious honey we therein store up for winter's use; even the curious fabric of our bodies-all is but a combination of these four elements. And, I repeat it, from the nature of things there can be no more than four elements; there can also be no less. [Sensation.]

Surely there is a plan in these things. But are they the end, the Purpose of the Universe! The furthest from it possible. The material world is not for itself; it is but the basis on which another world is to rest: they are pro. visional for something else, not final for themselves; they have no meaning, no consciousness; still less have they any self-consciousness. Suppose the universe stopped with its material part, with these four elements and their combinations: suppose from some other and more perfect universe a Bumblebee, accomplished as the members of this honourable body, should arrive-what would he say to a world of mere matter where motion, organization, growth was the highest mode of activity? I think he would at once leave it with disgust. [Cries of" Hear, Hear," and Aye, Aye.”]

II. Let us next look at the world of mind. Here is thought, consciousness, and in the highest departments self-consciousness-the mind that looks before and after, that knows and knows itself, conscious of its own processes of thought. The Bumblebee lives, feels, thinks, and wills. On the one side indeed he is fettered by matter, and must touch the mass of the elements of which his frame is made up; but on the other he is winged with mind: there bound,

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