136 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

 SLAVERY. 



"TWERYTHING which has hitherto been related about 

 Jjj ants, their behavior and their characteristic qualities, 

 their polity, their buildings and road-making, their storing- 

 up of provisions, their agricultural, malting, cattle-tending, 

 and milking proceedings, their acuteness in foraging for food, 

 their division of labor, their power of inter-communication, 

 etc., is indeed most noteworthy, and is fitted to awaken in 

 us respect and admiration towards the little creatures. But 

 all that has been told retires into the background as to 

 psychological significance in the intellectual life of these 

 animals, when we find or remember that the ants, as already 

 said, for an unknown length of time have had a politico- 

 social institution which had played and still plays a great 

 part in the history of human nations and civilization. 

 This institution, indeed, seems at first sight to harmonise 

 badly with the otherwise social-democratic tendency and 

 arrangements of the Ant Republic. But when we remem- 

 ber that slavery existed in the republics of antiquity and not 

 only well agreed with the rest of the polity, but was even an 

 essential support of the same, we can scarcely deprive the 

 Ant Republic of its democratic character on account of 

 slavery. And this the rather since slavery among ants is as 

 mild, if not milder, than it was in Greece and Rome, where 

 freed slaves were often known to rise to the highest offices 

 and dignities of the state, where as in Rome, Greek slaves 

 were the tutors and trainers of the young, and where slavery, 

 odious as it may be in and for itself, none the less contri- 

 buted to the general advance of civilization. Besides slavery 

 among ants is on a very important point far superior to that 

 of man, and it may be said without question that in this 

 respect ants think and act more humanely than men them- 

 selves ! For instance, they never allow groAvn-up members 



