THE CITY OF THE BEES. 2 1 7 



planet ? Their diminutive size is an obstacle, but 

 size is unavailing against Intelligence. The real 

 reason is different. 



The social insects did not achieve these marvellous 

 results, except at a severe and, as it proved, a fatal 

 cost. They solved the social question by elimin- 

 ating the factors they ought to have reconciled with 

 the social welfare. Sexuality and the difficulties of 

 population being disturbing elements in social organ- 

 isms, they cut the Gordian knot by confining mem- 

 bership of the State to the sexless. The males and 

 females, both of the bees and of the ants, contribute 

 mxore or less to its existence, for which they supply 

 the necessary basis, but they do not form part of the 

 community. The males are, as is well known, 

 simply turned out to starve, while the queen-bee or 

 ant, In spite of the reverence shown her, is kept as a 

 sort of State-prisoner, upon whom the security of 

 the State depends. What is the effect of this curi- 

 ous solution of the social problem ? This, that the 

 training of the citizens in each generation is wasted, 

 and that, as they leave no descendants, there is 

 no possibility of hereditary improvement^ either by 

 direct Inheritance of acquired intelligence or by the 

 survival of the descendants of the more intelligent. 

 Each generation is descended from queens that have 

 no training, and no occasion to exert their intel- 

 lectual faculties, and hence each eeneration is as wise 

 as its predecessor. In other words, the State of the 

 social insects is unprogressive, because the develop- 

 ment of the individual has been stopped ; its perfect- 

 ion has been bought by the sacrifice of progress. 

 The individual has been harmonized with social 

 requirements, but only by having his individuality 



