If, on the other hand, they think that any
insect can be of service to them, see how pretty they make themselves.
"What is to be intelligent if to know how to do what one wants to do, and
to do it repeatedly, is not to be intelligent? Some say that the rose-
seed does not want to grow into a rose-bush. Why, then, in the name of
all that is reasonable, does it grow? Likely enough it is unaware of the
want that is spurring it on to action. We have no reason to suppose that
a human embryo knows that it wants to grow into a baby, or a baby into a
man. Nothing ever shows signs of knowing what it is either wanting or
doing, when its convictions both as to what it wants, and how to get it,
have been settled beyond further power of question. The less signs
living creatures give of knowing what they do, provided they do it, and
do it repeatedly and well, the greater proof they give that in reality
they know how to do it, and have done it already on an infinite number of
past occasions.
"Some one may say," he continued, "'What do you mean by talking about an
infinite number of past occasions? When did a rose-seed make itself into
a rose-bush on any past occasion?'
"I answer this question with another.
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