This case, though rarely to be followed so closely, is not unique in natural history.  We have here, laid bare before us, the struggle between the conscious will of the triongulin, that seeks to live, and the obscure and general will of nature, that not only desires that the triongulin should live, but is anxious even that its life should be improved, and fortified, to a degree beyond that to which its own will impels it.  But, through some strange inadvertence, the amelioration nature imposes suppresses the life of even the fittest, and the Sitaris Colletes would have long since disappeared had not chance, acting in opposition to the desires of nature, permitted isolated individuals to escape from the excellent and far-seeing law that ordains on all sides the triumph of the stronger.

Can this mighty power err, then, that seems unconscious to us, but necessarily wise, seeing that the life she organises and maintains is forever proving her to be right?  Can feebleness at times overcome that supreme reason, which we are apt to invoke when we have attained the limits of our own?  And if that be so, by whom shall this feebleness be set right?

But let us return to that special form of her resistless intervention that we find in parthenogenesis.  And we shall do well to remember that, remote as the world may seem in which these problems confront us, they do indeed yet concern ourselves very nearly.  Who would dare to affirm that no interventions take place in the sphere of man—­interventions that may be more hidden, but not the less fraught with danger?  And in the case before us, which is right, in the end,—­the insect, or nature?  What would happen if the bees, more docile perhaps, or endowed with a higher intelligence, were too clearly to understand the desires of nature, and to follow them to the extreme; to multiply males to infinity, seeing that nature is imperiously calling for males?  Would they not risk the destruction of their species?  Are we to believe that there are intentions in nature that it is dangerous to understand too clearly, fatal to follow with too much ardour; and that it is one of her desires that we should not divine, and follow, all her desires?  Is it not possible that herein there may lie one of the perils of the human race?  We too are aware of unconscious forces within us, that would appear to demand the reverse of what our intellect urges.  And this intellect of ours, that, as a rule, its own boundary reached, knows not whither to go—­can it be well that it should join itself to these forces, and add to them its unexpected weight?

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