Page 278 - erewhon

‘They lay traps smeared with bird-lime, to catch insects,
and persuade them to drown themselves in pitchers which
they have made of their leaves, and fill with water; others
make themselves, as it were, into living rat-traps, which
close with a spring on any insect that settles upon them;
others make their flowers into the shape of a certain fly that
is a great pillager of honey, so that when the real fly comes it
thinks that the flowers are bespoke, and goes on elsewhere.
Some are so clever as even to overreach themselves, like the
horse-radish, which gets pulled up and eaten for the sake of
that pungency with which it protects itself against under-
ground enemies. 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 know-
ing what it is either wanting or doing, when its convictions
both as to what it wants, and how to get it, have been set-
tled 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 al-
ready on an infinite number of past occasions.