A theatre of politicall flying-insects. Wherein especially the nature, the worth, the work, the wonder, and the manner of right-ordering of the bee, is discovered and described / Together with discourses, historical, and observations physical concerning them. And in a second part are annexed meditations, and observations theological and moral, in three centuries upon that subject. By Samuel Purchase.

Samuel Purchas

Date:: 1657

Credit: A theatre of politicall flying-insects. Wherein especially the nature, the worth, the work, the wonder, and the manner of right-ordering of the bee, is discovered and described / Together with discourses, historical, and observations physical concerning them. And in a second part are annexed meditations, and observations theological and moral, in three centuries upon that subject. By Samuel Purchase. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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A- ill, Metapb Jib, u cap. i. may propeilyand perfe&ly bee moved from one place to# more remote , either by a progrebive. motion on the land, or flying through the aire, oi fwiming in the waters, for memory fetms for this purpofe to bee given to creatures, that they may bee removed toadiftant place, either to avoid that which is nocive and prejudicial, or to finde that which is ufefuJ, which they have any wayes made trial of, Further, fame creatures, faith Aiijlr.k) with memory, have prudence, which (as wee faid before) is not to bee underflood properly, but metaphorically, for they ule not difccurfe, nor ac¬ quire a habit, whereby they may judge of what they are to do • but oftentimes fo a<Sf by a natural inftindb, and fo p rovide for the future, as if they had reafon indeed , and therefore by a ficure are called prudent. J And this prudence of Brutes is a fpecial fagacity in Tome, which by the inftiruSl of nature , are fo ordered as that they feem to imitate the reafon and prudence of men ; but all brutes have not this prudence , but thofe creatures that hav e it, are fo per- fe<5b, that they have all of them memory, And vvec may adde further , that this natural fagacity , them chief! y merits the name of prudence when it is trained up , and perfected by the memory of former things., I Some creatures have not onely rntmoiy , but are tllo dif- eiplinable, but othetsare not : Of this lafl ranke are thefe which though they have memory, want the fenfe of hearirio5 tor hearing is the fenfe of difeipline ; for wee fee many crea¬ tures, dogs, and hotfes,aifl by externa! fignej, but never without a co-operation of hearing, whereby they are called and flirted up tounderftand the fignes. T] Now Ariflotle fets down an example in Bees which hee fup- pofed not to hear. But Pliny ,. Scalier, and many others iertion* ,, wiIIin§ t0 fa:vethe Philofophers credit, invented this d ttuiaion, 1 here is, faith her, a hearing of a found, as lo, or of a voyce, as it is an articulate found, now Bees hear in the formerway, not in the latter; but this latter hearing, faith hee, i* neceffary to make a creature difciplinable ; but whether many.dikiphnable creatures fo hear,might bear a great queftionj, for r

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