A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



and other queens. The queen lays the necessary eggs in such cells 

 as are offered to her, without expressing any will of her own. 



The State of the Bees, then, is no monarchy, but a republic. 

 Yet surely a republic, we ask, has need of a president, a leader and 

 commander? From the very fact that in the insect State there are 

 no superiors we perceive how fundamentally their organization 

 must differ from that of the human State. Among the Bees and 

 Ants no orders, no instructions are given, for every insect carries 

 the law in its own breast, and any failure to observe it is simply 

 impossible. The laws of the human State are devised by the subjects 

 of the State ; the new-born subject knows nothing of them to begin 

 with, but has to learn them ; each generation adds something to the 

 rising structure, but what is bequeathed "must be acquired before 

 it is possessed." With the limited discernment of the human mind, 

 the individual enterprise will only approximately achieve its aim, 

 since men differ so one from another that not all of them will under- 

 stand it equally well. Many are not willing to adapt themselves 

 to it, since they find it more agreeable to follow their own desires. 

 And these have to be forced into the great framework by means 

 of compulsion and punishment. But in the fact that work may 

 constantly be done upon the ever-uncompleted structure lies the 

 possibility of progress, and of the cultural evolution of the human 

 race. 



The insect State is not the work of its subjects, but of that Power 

 which is responsible for the development of all terrestrial life. Every 

 Bee, every Ant, bears within itself, at the moment of emerging from 

 pupation, the whole cultural possession, so to speak, of the bygone 

 generations of the State ; this possession is inherited, in its full com- 

 pass, with the details of its physical structure ; and without needing 

 to be taught, without displaying any reluctance, the insect enters 

 into its service. But as Wasmann, the myrmecologist, has shown, 

 the inhabitants of the insect State are by no means pure machines. 

 They can store up experience, and profit thereby ; but these possibili- 

 ties of modification lie within the frame of their inborn faculties ; 

 for example, the Spider can make its web larger or smaller and 

 anchor it in different ways, according to the space at its disposal, 

 but it can spin only the web proper to its species, never the web of 

 another species. The whole structure and all the laws of the insect 

 State are "given" to the Ants and Bees; they cannot control its 

 evolution. We must always be mindful of this fundamental difference 

 in the nature of the insect State, and the forces that are at work 

 290 



