THE SWARM 25 



a new and distant country. This act, be it conscious or not, 

 undoubtedly passes the limits of human morality. Its result 

 will sometimes be ruin, but poverty always ; and the thrice- 

 happy city is scattered abroad in obedience to a law superior 

 to its own happiness. Where has this law been decreed, which, 

 as we soon shall find, is by no means as blind and inevitable 

 as one might believe ? Where, in what assembly, what council, 

 wha,t intellectual and moral sphere, does this spirit reside to 

 which all must submit, itself being vassal to an heroic duty, to 

 an intelligence whose eyes are persistently fixed on the future ? 



It comes to pass with the bees as with most of the things 

 in this world ; we remark some few of their habits : we say, 

 they do this, they work in such and such fashion, their queens 

 are born thus, their workers are virgin, they all swarm at a 

 certain time. And then we imagine we know them, and ask 

 nothing more. We watch them hasten from flower to flower, 

 we see the constant agitation within the hive ; their life seems 

 very simple to us, and bounded, like every life, by the in- 

 stinctive cares of reproduction and nourishment. But let 

 the eye draw near, and endeavour to see ; and at once the 

 least phenomenon of all becomes overpoweringly complex ; 

 we are confronted by the enigma of intellect, of destiny, will, 

 aim, means, causes ; by the incomprehensible organisation of 

 the most insignificant act of life. 



II 



Our hive, then, is preparing to swarm ; making ready 

 for the great immolation to the exacting gods of the race. 

 In obedience to the order of the spirit — an order that to us 



D 



