18 Chapter I. 



get, that with man class differences rest on far dif- 

 ferent bases than differences of castes among ants. 

 With man they are the outcome of changeable, out- 

 ward conditions of life, or perhaps the result of the 

 intelligent free choice of the individuals concerned; 

 with ants, however, they spring directly from the 

 hereditary organic laws of polymorphism. Besides, 

 those socialistic theorists forget that among ants there 

 exists perfect equality and fraternity between all the 

 members of a colony, for the very reason that these 

 animals are guided by their social instincts only, not 

 by independent reasoning, and that they therefore 

 are never liable, as men unhappily often are, egotisti- 

 cally to prefer their individual welfare to the common 

 weal. If those socialist enthusiasts could transform 

 men into ants, then they might be justified in pro- 

 posing ant republics as the ideal political condition. 



H. E. Ziegler 1 is right, therefore, in saying: 

 "With ants the social differentiation is conditioned 

 by organization and instincts, and is thus accurately 

 fixed and regulated, whilst with man the social differ- 

 entiation is due to education, exercise and custom ; 

 only the foundation of man's social life is determined 

 by certain social instincts, its further development, 

 however, is regulated by the intellect, by education 

 and custom .... To argue about man's social 

 institutions from the relations existing among insects 

 would be committing a gross error, all the more so, 

 if one should consider the communistic insect 'states' 



*) "Die Naturwissenschaft und die socialdemokratische Theorie," 

 p. 186. See also R. Leuckart, "Ueber den Polymorphismus der 

 Individuen oder die Erscheinungen der Arbeitsteilung in der Natur," 

 Giessen, 1851. 



