they could not break through the light. They backed up and moved a lit-
tle farther away from him.
After the light drew back, he said to them, “Why did you get
angry? Hear me out first. Put together the reasons I am about to give;
then you yourselves draw a conclusion based on them. I foresee that
those of you who have outstanding judgment will accede, and the
storms that have arisen in your minds will grow calm.”
In response, although the spirits still sounded annoyed, they said,
“Speak then, and we will hear you out.”
[ 3 ] Then the angelic spirit rose to speak and said, “You believe that
animals have innate ideas. You have drawn this conclusion from the fact
that their actions seem to be based on thought. Yet they have no thought
at all; and if they have no thought, they cannot be said to have ideas. A
sign that thought processes are active is that people behave in one way or
another for one reason or another.
“Ponder, then, whether a spider that is weaving a web with the utmost
skill is thinking in its tiny head, ‘I am going to lay out threads in this
sequence and then stabilize them with perpendicular threads so that my
web doesn’t fall apart when the air shakes it violently. At the outermost
ends of threads that run in to the center I will fashion a seat for myself.
There I will sense if anything comes in and will hurry to the center. For
example, if a fly flies in and gets caught, I will quickly go in and wrap it
up and it will become my food.’
“Does a bee think in its tiny head, ‘I am going to fly away. I know
where the fields are that have flowers in them. There I will extract wax
from some flowers and honey from others. With the wax I will build
adjacent cells one after the other, laid out in such a way that my col-
leagues and I can easily get in and out on passageways. Later we will put
lots of honey away in the cells so that there will be enough to prevent our
death over the coming winter’? Not to mention other miraculous behav-
iors that not only emulate human political and economic prudence but
even outdo it in some respects [see § 12 : 7 above].
[ 4 ] “Again, does a hornet think in its tiny head, ‘My colleagues and I
will build a little home out of thin paper. We will curve its inside walls
into a labyrinth and fashion the heart of it into a gathering place with a
way in and a way out so cleverly designed that no other living thing that
is not part of our clan will be able to find the way to the center where we
are gathered’?
“Again, is a silkworm during its caterpillar phase thinking in its tiny
head, ‘Now is the time for me to get ready to spin silk. My goal is that
§335 the ten commandments 399