Some are first turned into nymphs and chrysalides, spinning
threads about themselves; and this travail being over they come forth
clad with a different body, furnished with wings with which they fly
in the air as in their heaven, and celebrate marriages and lay eggs
and provide posterity for themselves. [3] Besides these special
instances all creatures in general that fly in the air know the
proper food for their nourishment, not only what it is but where to
find it; they know how to build nests for themselves, one kind in one
way and another kind in another way; how to lay their eggs in the
nests, how to sit upon them, how to hatch their young and feed them,
and to turn them out of their home when they are able to shift for
themselves. They know, too, their enemies that they must avoid and
their friends with whom they may associate, and this from early
infancy; not to mention the wonders in the eggs themselves, in which
all things lie ready in their order for the formation and nourishment
of the chicks; besides numberless other things. [4] Who that thinks
from any wisdom of reason will ever say that these instincts are from
any other source than the spiritual world, which the natural serves
in clothing what is from it with a body, or in presenting in effect
what is spiritual in the cause? The beasts of the earth and the birds
of the air are born into all this knowledge, while man, who is far
superior to them, is not; for the reason that animals are in the
order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in
them from the spiritual world, because they have no rational faculty.
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