And we see that
this is the degree of perfection attained under nature. The endemic
productions of New Zealand, for instance, are perfect one compared
with another; but they are now rapidly yielding before the advancing
legions of plants and animals introduced from Europe. Natural
selection will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet,
as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature. The
correction for the aberration of light is said, on high authority, not
to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the eye. If our reason
leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable
contrivances in nature, this same reason tells us, though we may
easily err on both sides, that some other contrivances are less
perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as
perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be
withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes
the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?
If we look at the sting of the bee, as having originally existed in a
remote progenitor as a boring and serrated instrument, like that in so
many members of the same great order, and which has been modified but
not perfected for its present purpose, with the poison originally
adapted to cause galls subsequently intensified, we can perhaps
understand how it is that the use of the sting should so often cause
the insect's own death: for if on the whole the power of stinging be
useful to the community, it will fulfil all the requirements of
natural selection, though it may cause the death of some few members.
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