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labours of entomologists. Fabre, Avebury, Wasmann, Forel 

 are names that will occur to everybody as those of men who 

 have done much in their several ways to help on an answer to 

 these and kindred questions, and who have shown the road 

 which future investigators may pursue with profit. And the 

 study of the social hymenoptera has a further bearing upon a 

 development of evolutionary theory of the greatest importance, 

 for it introduces us to the conception of the group as the 

 selective unit instead of the individual, and so leads on to the 

 evolutionary side of sociology and ethics, with their accom- 

 paniment of organisation within the community, of imitation, 

 of tradition and the social sense. 



This is a tempting subject, and I would gladly pursue it 

 further did time permit. But I think I have now said enough 

 to illustrate my contention that entomologists enjoy peculiar 

 advantages in the attack of the great outstanding problems of 

 evolution. It is unquestionable that such a mind as that of 

 Herbert Spencer, capable of welding together into a con- 

 cordant whole a mass of facts and conclusions drawn from 

 every department of knowledge, is an asset of enormous value 

 to the cause of scientific progress. But it should never be 

 forgotten that the work of the specialist is equally essential ; 

 it is he who supplies material without which the generaliser 

 and unifier of knowledge could not work. And let us beware 

 of undervaluing kinds of work which do not happen to appeal 

 to our own individual tastes. I think no one can give atten- 

 tive consideration to the topics that have been touched on 

 this evening without seeing that our study has need of the 

 morphologist, the physiologist, the field naturalist, the museum 

 worker, the laboratory experimenter, the systematist, and — 

 shall I add? — the arm-chair philosopher. Each one of these 

 has his contribution to make to the common fabric of organised 

 and unified knowledge. 



