PREFACE 



consider them, in their relations to the highest welfare 

 of the race. 



The association of separate groups of individuals to 

 accomplish the primary aims of physical life is almost 

 sure to develop resemblances in methods. What are 

 those aims? Among ants, as the following pages will 

 show, they are the establishment of a home; procure- 

 ment of a livelihood; protection from enemies; preserva- 

 tion and nurture of the young and other communal 

 dependents; perpetuation of the species, and the prop- 

 agation of the commune. 



Wherein do these differ from the common necessities 

 and aims of men in their social aggregations? They 

 are practically the same. The Great Hand of Sovereign 

 Nature that has laid upon her children these common 

 aims has so guided them in the achieving thereof, that, 

 amid the endless variations which issue from an Infinite 

 Fountain of Design and Force, one traces resemblances 

 in methods that suggest their common origin. In our 

 studies, these likenesses, as well as unlikenesses and 

 contrasts, will be interesting to note. 



In many of the higher and complex duties of hu- 

 man communities it is impossible that insects should be 

 models for men, in whom there is an element that sep- 

 arates from all other creatures by an impassable gulf. 

 But in the great physical functions of a commune, which 

 are a bond of sympathy between us, we may have 

 something to learn from the ants, who manifestly have 

 kept and still keep to the primitive ways of nature more 

 closely than we. Sometimes these lessons have been 

 pointed out, sometimes simply suggested, sometimes 

 left for the reader to discern. But whether the one or 

 the other, the author ventures to hope that they may 



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