The Progress of the Race 



ments of the microscope, of the ento- 

 mologist's laboratory, revealed the precise 

 secret of the principal organs of the 

 workers, of the mother, and the males. 

 Need we wonder if our knowledge be 

 as scanty as our experience ? The bees 

 have existed many thousands of years; 

 we have watched them for ten or twelve 

 .lustres. And if it could even be proved 

 that no change has occurred in the hive 

 eince we first opened it, should we have 

 the right to conclude that nothing had 

 changed before our first questioning 

 glance? Do we not know that in the 

 evolution of species a century is but as a 

 drop of rain that is caught in the whirl 

 of the river, and that millenaries glide as 

 swiftly over the life of universal matter 

 as single years over the history of a 

 people ? 



369 



