60 Riley Presidential Address. 



control ; with the power of aerial flight developed when wanted ; 

 with a reproductive system that permits of great prolificacy and 

 yet avoids all the dangers of placental birth ; with the power of 

 temporarily suspending the active life functions when necessary ; 

 and, finally, with the power of such renewal of both the softer 

 and harder tissues of the body as ecdysis involves and you have 

 in fancy a creature which would easily make the earth and all 

 the fullness thereof its own. 



The great industry exhibited by social insects has been a fav 

 orite topic wherewith to point a moral to the sluggard; but I ven 

 ture to suggest that their economies, if they do not point other 

 morals, are extremely suggestive to man. With all their other 

 traits, so comparable to those characteristic of human society, 

 they will hardly be charged with the possession or practice of any 

 theology ; yet we may look in vain, among all the nations of the 

 earth, unless, indeed, among the similarly unblessed aborigines 

 of Borneo and some other lands, for greater self-sacrifice or cour 

 age in defending the common weal ; for greater loyalty to the 

 sovereign head of the community, not made by divine right, but 

 practically chosen by the commoners; for greater attention or 

 care in the education of the helpless young, or for more har 

 monious or friendly action between the individuals that form the 

 community. Without form or ceremony they have developed an 

 altruism which with us is believed to exemplify the highest 

 phase of civilization. 



Nor am I quite sure that they have not solved the social prob 

 lem in a way that, so far as the good of the community as well 

 as the individual is concerned, has marked advantages over the 

 many varied attempts in the same direction by mankind in dif 

 ferent parts of the world. If a large proportion of the units of 

 both sexes which go to make up human society could be so 

 brought up and trained that the sexual instincts remained per 

 manently arrested and undeveloped, while along with this arresta- 

 tion in this particular there went an increasing intellectual de 

 velopment and energy, to be expended in profitable industry, 

 what a large share of vice and misery in human society might be 

 avoided, and what a large amount of increased happiness among 

 the multitude might thus be secured, since in the end, intel 

 lectual and bodily activities, freed as far as possible from all 

 baser passions, bring us the highest happiness that we can realize ! 



