A NOTE IN REVIEW 



convenience and not of accuracy. Under such limita- 

 tions, a review of these pages compels the conclusion 

 that among all the lower animals ants must be ranked 

 for intelligence as most nearly resembling man in the 

 quality, variety, and complexity of their achievements. 

 Can we suggest any natural cause for this? 



The development of civilization has come largely 

 through the interaction of life upon life. And this has 

 had its chief effect in cities and towns, where human 

 beings more closely and continuously affect one another. 

 A trace of that fact remains in the current use among us 

 of the word "pagan." Christian civilization had its first 

 and widest acceptance among the cities, while the rural 

 sections held to the old religious forms. Hence the 

 Roman name for countryman, rustic (paganus), came 

 to be the equivalent of non-Christian or heathen. 



It is doubtless due to the same underlying fact or force 

 in nature that ants have acquired traits that place them 

 among the most intelligent members of the insect world. 

 The vigorous reflex of life and habits which existence in a 

 commune compels, widens the horizon of activities and 

 develops and nurtures facilities and conduct that strong- 

 ly mark the possessors as superior. To ants as well as 

 to men, the commune is a school. It would seem to 

 result that the more general the participation in com- 

 munal activities, the higher and more widely distributed 

 will be the advancement. 



The idea fancy or fact, as one may choose that the 

 communes of ants and other hymenopterous insects are 

 organized after the fashion of human government is 

 not a novelty. Long ago, Shakespeare, whose high en- 

 dowments of intellect and sympathies brought him with 

 almost unerring course to the very arcanum of nature's 



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