THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



207 



the expense of those who are less for- 

 tunate in the development of bone and 

 brawn. In civilization we forbid the 

 use of ph3'sical force in the contest, 

 and, as a consequence, the strife is now 

 on the i/U'ti/a/ plRnc: so the rewards go 

 to the man who is mentally acute, even 

 if the brain development be of the 

 predatory type. The end is not yet, 

 and the predominant thought of civili- 

 zation, today, is how to restrain the 

 strong man mentally as our ancestors 

 curbed the strong man physically', and 

 thus shift the struggle to another, and, 

 we hope, a higher plane; that is, the 

 moral one. 



The purpose of moralit}', this long 

 array of don'ts, we thus see, is to re- 

 strain the strong man in his might 

 that he may give his weaker fellows 

 not merely a chance to live — but to en- 

 joy living Any man, therefore, who 

 acts up to the limits of his power, 

 whether physical or mental, and at- 

 tains success at the expense of his fel- 

 lows, is immoral, and his success con- 

 sequentlj' becomes the measure of his 

 immoralit}'. The socialist complains 

 that the ethics of today are not moral, 

 they are merely non-immoral, that is 

 to say, they consist of so many don'ts 

 when he considers that they ought to 

 be dos. He holds that the reward, 

 whether in money or in fame, should 

 go to the individual who works for the 

 good of the human race, not to the one 

 who thinks onl}' of self, limiting his 

 energy only by what public opinion 

 forbids him to do. 



In the light ot these ideas, let us ex- 

 amine a bee hive, and I think we will 

 fird in it a very interesting series of 

 contrasts. First, we will find that 

 bees have evidently solved the great 

 problem of adapting themselves to 

 natural conditions, or, to put it plain- 

 ly, they have attained stable equilib- 

 rium with their environment. To them, 

 as with us, the food-supply is all im- 

 portant. The human race frequently 

 outruns it, and then famine lavs its 



awful grip on mankind, and wipes 

 millions out of existence. Bees display 

 greater wisdom, and very, ver3', rarelj' 

 do they bring into existence more in- 

 dividuals than can be comfortably fed. 

 To attain this highly desirable condi- 

 tion, restriction of conduct has been 

 enforced upon them in the process of 

 evolution, the most noticeable being 

 the emphatic difference in the sexual 

 relationship that characterizes them as 

 compared with most forms of life on 

 this earth. Whatever may have been 

 the originating cause, we now know 

 that sexual immorality has been ban- 

 ished from a bee hive, and, as a con- 

 sequence, life has become more sure to 

 the individuals by a greater certainty 

 of food supply to each. I need not en- 

 large upon the purposeful restriction 

 of the numbers during times of dearth, 

 as that is well known to every bee 

 keeper. 



Bees may or may not be intelligent, 

 a discussion of the pros and cons on 

 this point would take up too much 

 time and space, but I think it will be 

 admitted that the sterile workers are 

 of a higher nervous temperament than 

 are the queen and drones. It seems to 

 be a law of life that the less developed 

 the individual is in its nervous system, 

 the more prolific it is in reproduction; 

 and the converse is also true. We see 

 it with human beings. The rush of 

 modern society, the fierce mental com- 

 petition, make a terrible strain on the 

 human nervous system, and, as a con- 

 sequence, we have the cry of race sui- 

 cide. It would seem that a race is as 

 old as its nervous system; and when 

 this becomes frazzled the stock is 

 doomed to extinction. Reproduction is 

 therefore confined in the bee hive to the 

 stupid queens and drones while the 

 active, energetic worker is sterile. 



So far I have been discussing what I 

 have seen fit to call non-immorality, 

 but the predominant note in a bee hive, 

 it seems to me, is active morality. The 

 form of society, it would appear, is 



