The Swarm 



as we soon shall find, is by no means as 

 blind and inevitable as one might believe? 

 Where, in what assembly, what council, 

 what intellectual and moral sphere, does 

 this spirit reside to whom all must submit, 

 itself being vassal to an heroic duty, to 

 an intelligence whose eyes are persistently 

 fixed on the future ? 



It comes to pass with the bees as with 

 most of the things in this world; we 

 remark some few of their habits ; we 

 say they do this, they work in such and 

 such fashion, their queens are born thus, 

 their workers are virgin, they swarm at 

 a certain time. And then we imagine 

 we know them, and ask nothing more. 

 We watch them hasten from flower to 

 flower, we see the constant agitation within 

 the hive ; their life seems very simple to 

 us, and bounded, like every life, by the 

 instinctive cares of reproduction and nour- 

 ishment. But let the eye draw near, and 

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