CHAPTER XIV 

 THE FOUNDING OF SLAVE-MAKING ANT COMMUNES 



NTS are unique among social insects in the prac- 

 tice of a form of slavery. Bees and wasps, as far 

 as known, show no tendency thereto. Indeed, their 

 physical condition and manner of life seem to bar the 

 way to the development of such a type of co-operative 

 citizenship, while, on the other hand, the habit of ants 

 rather invites it. 



In this characteristic we have another suggestion 

 of those tendencies of human society which appear in 

 emmet life. As far back as run the authentic records 

 of our race, we trace some form of slave-holding. The 

 Abrahamic type, as uncovered in the Old Testament, 

 was little more than civic adoption, a kind of tribal 

 11 naturalization ' -to borrow a term from American 

 customs. Ancient Egypt had a far severer sort, as seen 

 in her remarkable mural history, preserved even to this 

 day in the inscriptions and paintings on the inner walls 

 of her tombs, and confirmed by the Bible story of the 

 Hebrew bondage. 



The slavery of classic Rome and Greece, though most 

 cruel in many of its features, had some mitigations; at 

 least, it did not close and seal the door of hope, but 

 kept an open way for its "freedmen" to become honored 

 and influential citizens. It lacked, as did most early 



forms of human bondage, that racial bar and taint which 



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