The Life of the Bee 



conviction, by their customs and laws, 

 their political and economical organisation, 

 their virtues, and even their cruelties ? 

 Nor is this god, though it be perhaps the 

 only one to which man has as yet never 

 offered serious worship, by any means the 

 least reasonable or the least legitimate 

 that we can conceive. The god of the 

 bees is the future. When we, in our 

 study of human history, endeavour to 

 gauge the moral force or greatness of a 

 people or race, we have but one standard 

 of measurement the dignity and perma- 

 nence of their ideal, and the abnegation 

 wherewith they pursue it. Have we often 

 encountered an ideal more conformable to 

 the desires of the universe, more widely 

 manifest, more disinterested or sublime; 

 have we often discovered an abnegation 

 more complete and heroic? 



