THE BREATH OF LIFE 



Could one by analyzing a hive of bees find out 

 the secret of its organization — its unity as an ag- 

 gregate of living insects? Behold its wonderful 

 economics, its division of labor, its complex social 

 structure, — the queen, the workers, the drones, — 

 thousands of bees without any head or code of laws 

 or directing agent, all acting as one individual, all 

 living and working for the common good. There is 

 no confusion or cross-purpose in the hive. When the 

 time of swarming comes, they are all of one mind and 

 the swarm comes forth. Who or what decides who 

 shall stay and who shall go? When the honey sup- 

 ply fails, or if it fail prematurely, on account of a 

 drought, the swarming instinct is inhibited, and the 

 unhatched queens are killed in their cells. Who or 

 what issues the regicide order? We can do no better 

 than to call it the Spirit of the Hive, as Maeterlinck 

 has done. It is a community of mind. What one 

 bee knows and feels, they all know and feel at the 

 same instant. Something like that is true of a living 

 body; the cells are like the bees : they work together, 

 they build up the tissues and organs, some are for 

 one thing and some for another, each community of 

 cells plays its own part, and they all pull together 

 for the good of the whole. We can introduce cells 

 and even whole organs, for example a kidney from 

 another living body, and all goes well; and yet we 

 cannot find the seat of the organization. Can we do 

 any better than to call it the Spirit of the Body? 



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