334 THE WORLD OF THE LITTLE. 
Our book, begun in a profound obscurity, terminates in a fulness of 
light. 
To form a correct judgment of insects, you must examine and esti- 
mate their achievements and their societies. If their organization rank 
so low as has been said, so much the more are they to be admired for 
accomplishing such noble works with such inferior organs. 
Observe that the most advanced works are executed by those (as, 
for example, the ants) who have no special implements to facilitate 
them, but must supply the want by skill and invention. 
Were they not so diminutive, what consideration we should extend 
to their arts and labours! Comparing the cities of the termites with 
the cabins of the negro, the subterranean galleries of the ants with 
the little excavations of our Tourangeaux of the Loire, how we should 
dwell on the superior skill of the insects! Is it stature, then, which 
changes your moral judgments? What are the proportions which will 
merit your esteem 4 
Let us add, that if this book do not modify the opinion of the 
reader, it has greatly modified our own. This, in the course of our 
labour, has undergone a considerable change. We thought we were 
going to study things, and found them souls. 
