PRUDENCE AND SLOTH 33 



flowerful sunny hours in toil, and then, when all is perfect, 

 when the little cosmogony might safely rest, to leave the 

 result of all its toil to a new generation, exile itself volun- 

 tarily to a new home, and begin again ! Surely such 

 prudence has no equal save in the endless patience, the 

 unerring foresight in obedience to which the crocus yields 

 its pollen, the flowers their honey, and the stars wheel on 

 their appointed courses ? 



The very wisdom of such insight leaves us without 

 a single theory of its origin which will bear scientific 

 criticism. Whence did the Sphex wasp acquire the know- 

 ledge of anatomy which enables it to paralyse its victim 

 by stinging it in its nervous ganglia ? Where did the 

 bee learn geometry, the ants their mastery of mechanical 

 laws ? 



One thing seems certain : the beasts have the advantage 

 of us in that intelligent anticipation of the future which is 

 the motive power of prudence. Even as weather prophets 

 they are infinitely our superiors. Endless proverbs and 

 country sayings testify to man's general admission that his 

 fellow mortals are more clear-sighted in many ways than 

 he is. The disappointed angler talks wisely of thunder 

 in the air, and the first intimation of a great flood which 

 devastated a valley two days after was the diligence of 

 the swans in raising their nests above the possibility of 

 danger. 



No one who has heard an elephant's trumpet of protest 

 when asked to do something which its clearer sight tells 

 it is unwise, can fail to admit that either its five senses 

 have a far wider area on which to work than ours have, 

 or it is the happy possessor of a sixth ! 



