The Mason-bees 



persist in believing that activity alone 

 strengthens the present and ensures the fu- 

 ture both of animals and men. To act is to 

 live; to work is to go forward. The energy 

 of a race is measured by the aggregate of its 

 action. 



No, I do not like it at all, this idleness so 

 much commended of science. We have quite 

 enough of these zoological brutalities: rran, 

 the son of the Ape; duty, a foolish prejudice; 

 conscience, a lure for the simple; genius, neu- 

 rosis; patriotism, jingo heroics; the soul, a 

 product of protoplasmic energies; God, a 

 puerile myth. Let us raise the war-whoop 

 and go out for scalps; we are here only to 

 devour one another; the summiim bonum is 

 the Chicago packer's dollar-chest! Enough, 

 quite enough of that, without having trans- 

 formlsm next, to break down the sacred law 

 of work. I will not hold it responsible for 

 our moral ruin; it has not a sturdy enough 

 shoulder to effect such a breach; but still it 

 has done its worst. 



No, once more, I do not like those brutali- 

 ties which, denying all that gives some dig- 

 nity to our wretched life, stifle our horizon 

 under an extinguisher of matter. Oh, don't 



