682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



where it exists at all, is founded on family life, because every 

 normal vertebrate animal is attracted to some individual of the 

 opposite sex by the strongest impulse of its nature, that of self- 

 preservation alone, and not always, being excepted. Invertebrate 

 society where it exists in perfection, as among certain Hymenop- 

 tera, is not formed of an aggregation of families because the great 

 majority of hymenopterous insects of the social species are neuters, 

 incapable of domestic attachment and devoted to the community 

 alone. To attempt without the existence of neuters to introduce 

 among mankind the social arrangements of the ant-hill is an ut- 

 terly baseless scheme. 



Looking a little further in the same direction, we see that 

 among men there is a wide diversity both in intelligence and in 

 energy. The more highly endowed individual, if he does not 

 leave his children in a better position, materially speaking, is yet 

 likely to hand down to them his own personal superiority. In 

 this manner the equality craved for by theorists is practically 

 annulled. 



Among ants nothing parallel can occur. The workers and the 

 fighters are sexless. If any individual is superior to its fellows in 

 strength and intelligence and certain facts recorded lead us to 

 believe that such must be the case it has no offspring to whom 

 its gains could be bequeathed or its personal superiority handed 

 down. 



Hence the origin of a pariah, a criminal, or a pauper class is 

 prevented. Conversely, the formation of a class cV elite is rendered 

 impossible. The ant-hill is, indeed, safe from the existence of the 

 pedagogue and his disciples ; but it is, on the other hand, deprived 

 of the thinker, the inventor, and the discoverer. 



This is doubtless the reason of the stationary character of the 

 civilization of ants. In proof of this ossification or stagnation, a 

 very interesting fact was pointed out by the eminent Swiss natu- 

 ralist Oswald Heer. Certain ants belonging to one and the same 

 species are found both in Switzerland and in England. Between 

 the two groups no intercourse can have taken place and no com- 

 munication can have been transmitted since the " silver streak of 

 sea " was interposed between Dover and Calais that is, for many 

 thousands of years. Yet on careful examination the social ar- 

 rangements of these two severed portions, their architecture, and 

 their habits in general, appear identical. Now, had their civiliza- 

 tion been undergoing any changes, it is not conceivable that such 

 changes would in both these communities have proceeded at the 

 same rate and taken exactly the same direction. Hence the in- 

 ference seems plain that in that species of ant progress is at an 

 end. 



The brevity of the career of each individual insect acts also 



