NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

The creation of fowl and water animals.gathering this precious nourishment, by which both kings and men of low degree are broughtto health! How great is the art and cunning she displays in the construction of the storehouses which are destined to receive the honey! After having spread the wax like a thinmembrane, she distributes it in contiguous compartments which, weak though they are, bytheir number and by their mass, sustain the whole edifice. Each cell in fact holds to the onenext to it, and is separated by a thin partition; we thus see two or three galleries of cells builtone upon the other. The bee takes care not to make one vast cavity, for fear it might breakunder the weight of the liquid, and allow it to escape. See how the discoveries of geometryare mere by-works to the wise bee! 1661The rows of honey-comb are all hexagonal with equal sides. They do not bear on eachother in straight lines, lest the supports should press on empty spaces between and give way;but the angles of the lower hexagons serve as foundations and bases to those which riseabove, so as to furnish a sure support to the lower mass, and so that each cell may securelykeep the liquid honey. 16625. How shall we make an exact review of all the peculiarities of the life of birds? Duringthe night cranes keep watch in turn; some sleep, others make the rounds and procure a quiet98slumber for their companions. After having finished his duty, the sentry utters a cry, andgoes to sleep, and the one who awakes, in his turn, repays the security which he has enjoyed.1663 You will see the same order reign in their flight. One leads the way, and whenit has guided the flight of the flock for a certain time, it passes to the rear, leaving to the onewho comes after the care of directing the march.The conduct of storks comes very near intelligent reason. In these regions the sameseason sees them all migrate. They all start at one given signal. And it seems to me that our1661 cf. Ælian. v. 13. γεωμετρίαν δὲ καὶ κάλλη σχημάτων καὶ ὡραίας πλάσεις αὐτῶν ἄνευ τέχνης τε καὶκανόνων καὶ τοῦ καλουμένου ὑπὸ τῶν σοφῶν διαβήτου, τὸ κάλλιστον σχημάτων ἑξαγωνόν τε καὶ ἑξάπλευρονκαὶ ἰσογώνιον ἀποδείκνυνται αἱ μέλιτται.1662 The mathematical exactness of the bee is described by Darwin in terms which make it even more marvellousthan it appeared to Basil. “The most wonderful of all known instincts, that of the hive bee, may be explainedby natural selection having taken advantage of numerous slight modifications of simpler instincts; naturalselection having by slow degrees more and more perfectly led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a givendistance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and excavate the wax along the planes of intersection.”Origin of Species, ii. 255, ed. 1861. According to this view the beings from whom hive bees, as we know them,are descended were gifted with certain simple instincts capable of a kind of hereditary unconscious education,resulting in a complex instinct which constructs with exact precision the hexagonal chamber best fitted for thepurpose it is designed to fulfil, and then packs it. And it is interesting to note how the great apostle of abstractselection personifies it as a “taker” of “advantage,” and a “leader.”1663 Arist., Hist. An. ix. 10.337