s or habits seem proportionally greater in the
insect tribes, and in those especially of shorter revolution; and
forming an abiding memory, may resolve much of the enigma of instinct,
and the foreknowledge which these tribes have of what is necessary to
completing their round of life, reducing this to knowledge or
impressions and habits acquired by a long experience._

"This greater continuity of existence, or rather continuity of
perceptions and impressions in insects, is highly probable; _it is even
difficult in some to ascertain the particular steps when each individual
commences_, under the different phases of egg, larva, pupa, or if much
consciousness of individuality exists. The continuation of reproduction
for several generations by the females alone in some of these tribes,
_tends to the probability of the greater continuity of existence; and
the subdivisions of life by cuttings (even in animal life), at any rate,
must stagger the advocate of individuality_.

"Among the millions of specific varieties of living things which occupy
the humid portions of the surface of our planet, as far back as can be
traced, there does not appear, with the exception of man, to have been
any particular engrossing race, but a pretty fair balance of power of
occupancy--or rather most wonderful variation of circumstance parallel
to the nature of every species, _as if circumstance and species had
grown up together_. There are, indeed, several races which have
threatened ascendancy in some particular regions; but it is man alone
from whom any general imminent danger to the existence of his brethren
is to be dreaded.

"As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerable
influence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probably
occasioning the destruction of many species, and the production and
continuation of a number of varieties, and even species, which he found
more suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of their
condition--_not having undergone selection by the law of nature_, of
which we have spoken--cannot maintain their ground without culture and
protection.

"It is only however in the present age that man has begun to reap the
fruits of his tedious education, and has proven how much 'knowledge is
power.' He has now acquired a dominion over the material world, and a
consequent power of increase, so as to render it probable that the whole
surface of the earth may soon be overrun by