The Life of the Bee 



are numerous proofs and most powerful 

 arguments, which yet do not carry irre- 

 sistible conviction. We must 'beware of 

 abandoning ourselves unreservedly to the 

 prevailing truths of our time. A hundred 

 years hence, many chapters of a book 

 instinct to-day with this truth, will appear 

 as ancient as the philosophical writings of 

 the eighteenth century seem to us now, 

 full as they are of a too perfect and non- 

 existing man, or as so many works of the 

 seventeenth century, whose value is less- 

 ened by their conception of a harsh and 

 narrow god. 



Nevertheless, when it is impossible to 

 know what the truth of a thing may be, 

 it is well to accept the hypothesis that 

 appeals the most urgently to the reason 

 of men at the period when we happen to 

 have come into the world. The chances 

 are that it will be false ; but so long as 

 we believe it to be true it will serve a use- 

 384 



