BIOLOGY IN ITS WIDER ASPECTS 1213 



But much the same sort of mistake is repeated when we lay all 

 the stress on the healthy body. For what avails it that body be fair 

 if mind be stunted or soul be fouled. We must complete the old 

 trilogy ; of wealthy, healthy, and wise, and these in their due ascending 

 order. We hear about the needed balance of bodily nutrition, but 

 what of the nurture of the mind? Just as there may be Calcium 

 starvation, so there is Beauty starvation. We must look to it that 

 we do not shut ourselves off from the ultra-violet rays of the spirit. 



But even wealthy, plus healthy, plus wise, is incomplete; for we 

 are social organisms in our very essence, citizens of no mean city, 

 members of the body politic, members one of another, folk working 

 together in our given place. Thus social considerations must be 

 supreme; the ideals of "wealthy, healthy and wise" have as yet 

 been too individual, the opening future has to Socialise them with 

 ever-increasing fullness. 



We cannot conclude, however, without returning to ants, bees, 

 and wasps, which have offered such promise of wisdom to the social 

 reformer, yet show lurid warnings too. Some are fond of speaking of 

 "the human herd", and others play with the phrase "the human 

 hive". Each term has its meaning, of course, but they need also to 

 be made of service in reminding us that we may pay too dear for 

 our socialising. Let us go to the bee, for instance, so commonly 

 upheld as an embodiment of all the virtues, save hospitality. Bees 

 are wonderful creatures, the finest children of instinct in the world, 

 and the social organisation of the hive is marvellous. But is it 

 admirable for us? When we look into the matter more critically, 

 what a very seamy side is disclosed. There is the establishment of 

 a reproductive, non-productive caste — a loathsome idea; there is 

 the dependence of the whole system on a huge proletariat of sup- 

 pressed females, instinctively a "servile state", and largely unin- 

 telligent; there is the terrible thirling of the queen to her exag- 

 gerated maternity; and, as a bitter bathos, there is the massacre 

 of the drones. Heaven preserve us from going to the bees! 



Then the generalised moral for us is this, that even social organisa- 

 tion is not necessarily a good thing in itself. It requires to be 

 scrutinised, not only in terms of wealth and health, both so con- 

 spicuous in the bee-hive, but in terms of the higher values — the 

 good, the beautiful, and the true, with their outcome in the evolu- 

 tion of man's personality. "For what profit will there be if a man 

 gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" * 



PLEASURE AND PAIN IN LIFE 



As to the values of pleasure and pain, philosophers have long dis- 

 puted, economists have theorised, and politicians have acted on 

 both teachings; but comparative psychology and biology, with their 



