The Life of the Bee 



each other, and to persist in their pres- 

 ent mediocrity; but thus does it often 

 happen in nature. The gifts she accords 

 are employed for evil at first, for the ren- 

 dering worse what she had apparently 

 sought to improve ; but, from this evil, a 

 certain good will always result in the end. 

 Besides, I am by no means anxious to 

 prove that there has been progress, which 

 may be a very small thing or a very great 

 thing, according to the place whence we 

 regard it. It is a vast achievement, the 

 surest ideal, perhaps, to render the condi- 

 tion of men a little less servile, a little less 

 painful ; but let the mind detach itself for 

 an instant from material results, and the 

 difference between the man who marches 

 in the van of progress and the other 

 who is blindly dragged at its tail ceases 

 to be very considerable. Among these 

 young rustics, whose mind is haunted 

 only by formless ideas, there are many 

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