86 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



own strange limitation, and that the tiny flame which with 

 so much difficulty at last burns its way through inert matter 

 and issues forth from the brain, is still so uncertain that 

 if it illumine one point more strongly the others are forced 

 into blacker darkness ? Here we find that the bees — or 

 nature acting within them — have organised work in common, 

 the love and cult of the future, in a manner more perfect 

 than can anywhere else be discovered. Is it for this reason 

 that they have lost sight of all the rest ? They give their 

 love to what lies ahead of them ; we bestow ours on what 

 is around. And we who love here, perhaps, have no love 

 left to confer on what is beyond. Nothing varies so much 

 as the direction of pity or charity. We ourselves ' should 

 formerly have been far less shocked than we are to-day at 

 the insensibility of the bees, and to many an ancient people 

 such conduct would not have seemed blameworthy. And 

 further, can we tell how many of the things we do would 

 shock a being who might be watching us as we watch the 

 bees ? 



46 



Let us now, in order to form a clearer conception of 

 the bees' intellectual power, consider their methods of inter- 

 communication. There can be no doubting that they 

 understand each other ; and indeed it were surely impossible 

 for a republic so considerable, wherein the labours are so 

 varied and so marvellously combined, to subsist amid the 

 silence and spiritual isolation of so many thousand creatures. 

 They must be able, therefore, to give expression to thoughts 



