What can we think of the excess to which the eulogiums on this animal have been carried? Among other great qualities they are said to possess the most pure republican principles, an ardent love for their country, a disinterested assiduity in labouring for the public good, the strictest economy, the most perfect geometry and elegant architecture. Notwithstanding these eulogies, a bee ought to hold no greater rank in the estimation of naturalists than it does in nature; and, in the eye of reason, this marvellous and so much extolled republic will never be any thing more than a multitude of small animals, which have no affinity to man but that of furnishing him with wax and honey. Let people examine with attention their little manoeuvres, proceedings, and toils; let them describe exactly their generation, their multiplication, their metamorphoses, &c.--These are objects worthy of the attention of a naturalist; but to hear the morals of insects cried up is insufferable; and I am fully convinced, that by a strict and rational observer it would be found, that the origin and superstructure of the various wonderful talents ascribed to bees, arises from the mother bee producing 10,000 individuals at one time, and in the same place, which necessarily obliges them to arrange themselves in some order for the preservation of their existence. Is not Nature sufficiently astonishing of herself, without attempting to render her more so, and without attributing to her miracles which have no existence but in our own imagination? Is not the Creator sufficiently great by his works; and do we believe we can render him more so by our weakness? This, were there a possibility, would be the way to debase him. Who, in effect, has the most exalted idea of the Supreme Being, he who beholds him create the universe, arrange every existence, and establish nature on invariable and perpetual laws; or he who sees him attentive in conducting a republic of insects? Certain animals unite into societies, which seem to depend on the choice of those that compose them, and which of consequence has in it a far greater degree of intelligence and design than the society of bees, of which the sole principle is physical necessity. Elephants, beavers, apes, and many other species of animals, assemble together in bodies, assist, and defend each other. Did we not so often disturb these societies, and could we observe them with as much ease as those of the bees, we should, doubtless, meet with a multitude of other wonders; which still, however, would amount to nothing more than so many physical relations. A great number of animals, of the same species, being assembled in the same place, there will necessarily result a certain arrangement, and a certain order of common habits. Now every common habit, far from having enlightened intelligence for its cause, implies nothing more than a blind imitation.