106 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



that a clasp of the hand is preferable to a rifle-shot ; 

 that the happiest people is not that which possesses 

 the largest battalions, but that which labours in peace 

 and produces abundantly ; and that the amenities of 

 existence do not necessitate the existence of frontiers, 

 beyond which we meet with all the annoyances of 

 the custom-house, with its officials who search our 

 pockets and rifle our luggage. 



Our descendants will see this and many other 

 marvels which to-day are extravagant dreams. To 

 what ideal height will the process of evolution lead 

 mankind ? To no very magnificent height, it is to be 

 feared. We are afflicted by an indelible ta-'nt, a 

 kind of original sin, if we may call sin a state of 

 things with which our will has nothing to do. We 

 are made after a certain pattern and we can do 

 nothing to change ourselves. We are marked with 

 the mark of the beast, the taint of the belly, the 

 inexhaustible source of bestiality. 



The intestine rules the world. In the midst of 

 our most serious affairs there intrudes the imperious 

 question of bread and butter. So long as there are 

 stomachs to digest— and as yet we are unable to 

 dispense with them — we must find the wherewithal 

 to fill them, and the powerful will live by the suffer- 

 ings of the weak. Life is a void that only death can 

 fill. Hence the endless butchery by which man 

 nourishes himself, no less than beetles and other 

 creatures ; hence the perpetual holocausts which 

 make of this earth a knacker's yard, beside which 

 the slaughter-houses of Chicago are as nothing. 



But the feasters are legion, and the feast is not abun- 



