Wars and Slavery in the Animal Kingdom. 81 



spring, as if they were in their own colony. They are 

 called "slaves," only because they are reared from 

 robbed pupae, live in the nests of strangers and work 

 for them. On the other hand the sanguineas are 

 called "masters," only for the reason that they have 

 robbed the pupae of an alien species, from which 

 their auxiliaries originate; and besides, because these 

 mixed colonies contain not workers only of F. san- 

 guinea, but also their males and females, whereas 

 the slave species is represented only by workers. This 

 is why in mixed colonies the propagation of the 

 masters is ensured but not that of the slaves. 



Therefore it is downright nonsense for Buechner 

 to place slavery among ants and human slavery on 

 essentially the same level. By virtue of his intelli- 

 gence, man possesses the power of reflecting on his 

 origin and social position; he is gifted with self- 

 consciousness', accordingly he considers slavery as an 

 unjustified deprivation of freedom, a state of humilia- 

 tion, a degradation of his human dignity. With ants 

 it is different. They have neither intellect nor self- 

 consciousness, and are thus incapable of pondering 

 over the obscure question "whence" and "whither." 

 As auxiliary ants they follow their social instincts 

 just as well as in a nest of their own species: they 

 are as free and independent as any other ant on 

 earth. Hence among slave ants there are no run- 

 aways, no revolutionists, no conspirators, no anarch- 

 ists. He, who seriously points to the complete social- 

 ism and communism of mixed ant colonies as models 

 for human socialism and political economy, is sadly 

 in need of a nerve specialist. 

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