THE BEE NATION. 267 



Tn matter of labor the bees have realised the highest ideal 

 of Communism, for it is perfectly free, voluntary and un- 

 compulsory ; each does as much or as little as seems to it 

 good. But there are no sluggards among them, for the 

 universal example acts as an incitement, and in a society 

 wherein all work idleness is really an unthinkable and im- 

 possible thing, whereas on the contrary, in the much praised 

 opposite condition of human society, the idleness of the few 

 is not only favored, but seems to be absolutely unavoidable. 

 Truly, in a communistic form of society the individual must 

 have the consciousness, as among the bees, that in so far as 

 he is a member of the whole, he is not working for others, 

 but for the common good and therewith for himself. This 

 consciousness makes the bees such busy and eager workers, 

 that many of them work themselves to death in a few weeks 

 during the foraging season, whereas working bees usually 

 reach an age of nine or ten months, so that Virgil wrote 

 truly : 



" Ofttimes in a mistaken flight they tear 

 Their wings, and even genercmsly die 

 Before they drop the precious load, so high 

 The fame of getting honey, and so strong 

 The love they feel for flowers.'' 



[Loc. cit. pp. 29, 30.J 



The " instinct "-philosophers will probably say that this is 

 only the result of an inborn irresistible heaven-implanted 

 tendency in the little bee minds, from which the insect 

 cannot voluntarily free itself, and that we therefore cannot 

 here speak either of merit or design. But in the first place 

 it is not credible that instinct should dictate to an animal to 

 do that which will finally lead it to destruction, and secondly 

 that opinion agrees very ill with the already often-mentioned 

 experience, that the inhabitants of a queenless hive, which 

 with their queen have lost the object of their society, cease 

 to work and fall into idleness and riot. These, in conse- 

 quence of an event quite outside themselves, the connection 

 of which with their personal life-duties can only be clear to 

 them by a decided act of reflexion and deduction, have 

 entirely lost the impulse to work, formerly so strong in 

 them, and this is impossible and incredible if this tendency 

 or impulse were instinctive, or unconnected with the 

 volition of the individual. The members of queenless 

 hives scatter and die, or try to slip into other hives to get 



