SOCIAL LIFE 261 



are yet bound together as fast as the cells of a sponge or the 

 persons of a Siphonophoran." On this view of the matter 

 a single ant cannot be defined as an " actual individual," 

 though *' morphologically and historically equivalent " 

 thereto. The members of the community are now 

 " functioning as parts, but descended from ancestors that 

 functioned as wholes." A similar line of argument has 

 been advanced also by W.N. Wheeler (191 1) in his discussion 

 on the " Ant Colony as an Organism." He dwells on the 

 community as an organic system in relation, as a whole, 

 with its environment, and in this social organism, the fertile 

 members stand for the germ-cells, the workers and soldiers 

 for the body. H. Bergson (1907) claimed that a bee- 

 community is " really and not metaphorically a unique 

 organism." 



This manner of regarding an insect society is analogous 

 to the personification of such a human society as the city 

 or state. In our own communities, however, it is very 

 rarely possible to forget the true individuality of the single 

 member. This may be overlooked in the ants' nests or the 

 bee-hive, because the behaviour of each single insect is 

 so largely determined by inherited reflexes all tending to 

 the maintenance of the community-life, that the single 

 insect ceases to count. The general perfection of this pre- 

 determined behaviour makes the communistic ant or wasp 

 less plastic and originative than the ** solitary " members 

 of her family often are. Yet worker insects, confronted 

 with unusual conditions, have been observed to behave in a 

 manner demonstrating some power of initiative and adapta- 

 tion, and the morphologist, considering the problem, will 

 find it hard to deny the true individuality of any one member 

 of an ants' nest, even if he is willing to call the whole society 

 a " super-organism." The parallel and divergent con- 

 ditions of the insect community as compared with human 

 society present many fascinating problems for consideration ; 

 but the discussion of these must be deferred to our closing 

 pages. 



