PHILOSOPHIC ANTS 183 



This was overheard, and he was condemned (loneli- 

 ness being much hated and dreaded by ants) to a 

 solitary banishment. 



Later philosophers, however, by using this same 

 pendulum method, were enabled to find that the 

 movements of sap in plants differed in rate according 

 to the length of day, and later, discovered that the ex- 

 pansion of water in hollow stems also followed these 

 changes. By devising machines for registering these 

 movements, they were enabled to prophesy with con- 

 siderable success the amount of work to be got through 

 on a given day, and so to render great aid to the smooth 

 working of the body politic. Thus, gradually, the old 

 ideas fell into desuetude among the educated classes — 

 which, however, did not prevent the common people 

 from remaining less than half-convinced and from re- 

 gardingthemen of science with suspicionand disapproval. 

 ♦ ♦**♦* 



We happen to be warm-blooded — to have had the 

 particular problem faced by our philosophic ants 

 solved for us during the passage of evolutionary time, 

 not by any taking of thought on our part or on the 

 part of our ancestors, but by the casual processes of 

 variation and natural selection. But a succession of 

 similar problems presses upon us. Relativity is in the 

 air ; it is so much in the air that it becomes almost 

 stifling at times ; but even so, its sphere so far has 

 been the inorganic sciences, and biological relativity, 

 though equally important, has been little mentioned. 



