332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion. It also induces the incessant reiteration of acts that have proved 

 beneficial to the community, until the tendency to perform these acts 

 becomes so strong that it is hereditarily transmitted. In other words, 

 it tends to produce instincts. In fact, in the case of animals of low 

 intellectual vigor, like the ants and bees, it seems probable that new 

 habits, of special value to a community, grow up only by minute incre- 

 ments, and through long periods of time. Each when gained becomes 

 repeated through innumerable generations, and finally becomes an 

 instinct, capable of hereditary transmission. In this way animals of 

 very slight intellectual vigor, by the educational transmission of all 

 beneficial individual acts, may have gradually gained the diversified 

 mental conditions of these two remarkable types. 



In ant and bee communities, as at present constituted, the heredi- 

 tary transmission of new arts seems at first sight impossible. Intel- 

 lectual acts performed by the workers must remain unknown to the 

 solitary female, who can only transmit the ancient instincts. It would 

 seem as if the development of communalism had reached a point at 

 which intellectual progress must stop. The general habits of ants and 

 bees were probably gained during their slow evolution of communalism 

 from socialism, and ere the sexual relations had attained their present 

 extreme restriction. With but one female, who takes no part in the 

 duties of home or field, and remains ignorant of any shrewd act that 

 may be performed by a worker, it seems impossible that the existing 

 instincts should receive any addition. 



Yet this is not quite impossible, even in the present conditions of 

 ant and bee life. Experiential development and transmission of new 

 habits may continue indefinitely, since single communities may con- 

 tinue in existence, or may yield direct colonies, for indefinite periods 

 of years. And the occasional birth of males from workers affords a 

 possible means by which these habits may be hereditarily transmitted, 

 since it is quite conceivable that these male children of Morkers may be- 

 come the parents of new communities. In bee communities the occa- 

 sional transformation of a worker into a queen affords a direct means 

 for the transmission of worker characteristics. The case is closely 

 parallel to that of the transmission of knowledge in human communi- 

 ties, 'though in the latter hereditary transmission is of limited scope, 

 and education is the great agent in the communication of knowledge. 



Special attention has here been given to this question, as it is one 

 that has excited much comment and debate, and the thoughts here 

 advanced may not be without their interest and value. I would but 

 repeat what is above said, that the remarkable institutions of ant and 

 bee communities do not indicate any intellectual superiority to solitary 

 animals in the members of these communities, but simply a much supe- 

 rior method for the transmission of intellectual results. And to this 

 may be added the final conclusion that while ant and bee communalism 

 has now reached a stage that must tend in great measure to check the 



