Page:The life of the bee (IA cu31924101469827).pdf/25

On the Threshold of the Hive patient collaboration, wherein the one who saw only with immaterial light guided with his spirit the eyes and hands of the other who had the real earthly vision; where he who, as we are assured, had never with his own eyes beheld a comb of honey, was yet able, notwithstanding the veil on his dead eyes that rendered double the veil in which nature enwraps all things, to penetrate the profound secrets of the genius that had made this invisible comb; as though to teach us that no condition in life can warrant our abandoning our desire and search for the truth. I will not enumerate all that apiarian science owes to Huber; to state what it does not owe were the briefer task. His "New Observations on Bees," of which the first volume was written in 1789, in the form of letters to Charles Bonnet, the second not appearing till twenty years later, have remained the 13