CONCLUSION 235 



and forgive greater accumulations of wrong than 

 any other animal, not even excepting a wife. 

 About the only thing in the universe superior to 

 the dog in willingness to undergo outrage is the 

 human stomach. Would you learn wisdom and 

 industry ? Go to the ant, that tireless toiler of 

 the dust. The ant can do that which no man 

 can do — keep grain in a warm, moist atmosphere 

 without sprouting. Would you learn art ? Go 

 to the bee or to the wild bird's lodge. The art 

 of the honeycomb and of the hang-bird's nest 

 surpasses that of the cranny of the savage as 

 the Cathedral of St. Peter exceeds the cottage. 

 Would you learn socialism, that dream of poets 

 and the hope and expectation of wise men ? It is 

 actualised around you in thousands of insect 

 communities. The social and economic relations 

 existing in the most highly wrought societies of 

 bees and wasps are fundamentally the ideal rela- 

 tions of living beings to each other, but it will 

 require millenniums of struggle and bloodshed 

 for men to come up to them. Would you learn 

 curiosity — not the curiosity that gossips and 

 backbites, but the curiosity of the explorer and 

 searcher after knowledge ? Go to the monkey. 

 The monkey has been known to work two hours, 

 without pause, utterly unconscious of everything 

 but its purposes, trying to open a fettered trunk 

 lock (10). Would you learn sobriety ? Go not 

 to the gilded hells of cities, where men die like 

 flies in gin's vile miasma. Go to the spring where 

 the antelope drinks. Would you learn chastity ? 



