LAWS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG LOWER ANIMALS. 683 



decidedly in favor of the preservation of social equality and of 

 the stationariness of civilization. If either ant or man is apt to 

 rise or to fall, then the shorter the time during which snch rise 

 or fall is possible the more surely will a uniform level of society 

 be maintained. 



To prevent misunderstanding, I must remark that differences 

 of structure, with a corresponding difference of duties, occur 

 among the workers in the ant-hill ; but these differences are not 

 transmissible, and the various classes of workers spring indis- 

 criminately from the same parents. Hence they are not analo- 

 gous to the castes that have arisen in many human races. 



It is noteworthy that man has from time to time sought to 

 imitate the neuter order so prevalent in hymenopterous societies. 

 These attempts, however, whether made by devoting certain 

 classes to celibacy, or by a more barbarous method prevalent in 

 antiquity, and surviving in the East even to our own times, have 

 been an utter failure. Celibates have always proved a disturbing 

 force. What would be the effects, moral and social, of the appear- 

 ance of a neuter form of the human species, corresponding to the 

 working bee or ant, it is difficult to foresee. We may venture to 

 surmise that they would be disastrous. 



But, though communists, ants and bees are not cosmopolitans. 

 A stranger of the same species, but belonging to a different nation- 

 ality, is far from welcome in the hive or the nest. As a rule, death 

 will be its lot. 



Wars not infrequently rage between different hives, or between 

 distinct settlements of ants of one and the same species. Accord- 

 ing to several observers, though the contending armies are to 

 human eyes utterly undistinguishable, yet each individual com- 

 batant never fails to discriminate between friend and foe. 



Concerning the government of social insects, we are as yet 

 utterly in the dark. We see works undertaken, altered and ex- 

 tended, criminals executed, guards set, food brought in, nuisances 

 removed, expeditions planned, and wars waged, but we do not see 

 the guiding spirit. Who determines in what direction a body of 

 ecitons shall set out on a foray ? Who regulates the numbers and 

 the position of the guard found at the entrances of an ant-hill ? 

 Who relieves the little sentinels in due course ? 



In some species there are, indeed, large-sized individuals which 

 seem to exercise a kind of authority, but concerning their powers 

 and duties we know little indeed. If the various functions of a 

 human community were left to the spontaneous initiative of all 

 comers, we should have sad confusion. Now, the various duties 

 to be regularly performed in an ant-hill, if less numerous and 

 multiform than those of a civilized human city, yet seem, to our 

 eyes, to be sufficiently complex to necessite a prearranged system. 



