

24 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS i 



is kept together by bonds of such a singular 

 character, that the attempt to perfect society after 

 his fashion would run serious risk of loosening 

 them. 



Social organization is not peculiar to men. 

 Other societies, such as those constituted by bees 

 and ants, have also arisen out of the advantage of co- 

 operation in the struggle for existence ; and their 

 resemblances to, and their differences from, human 

 society are alike instructive. The society formed by 

 the hive bee fulfils the ideal of the communistic 

 aphorism " to each according to his needs, from each 

 according to his capacity." Within it, the 

 struggle for existence is strictly limited. Queen, 

 drones, and workers have each their allotted suffi- 

 ciency of food; each performs the function 

 assigned to it in the economy of the hive, and all 

 contribute to the success of the whole co-operative 

 society in its competition with rival collectors of 

 nectar and pollen and with other enemies, in the 

 state of nature without. In the same sense as 

 the garden, or the colony, is a work of human 

 art, the bee polity is a work of apiarian art, 

 brought about by the cosmic process, working 

 through the organization of the hymenopterous 

 type. 



Now this society is the direct product of an 

 organic necessity, impelling every member of 

 it to a course of action which tends to the good 

 of the whole. Each bee has its duty and none 



