THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE 217 



a precarious, egotistic, and incomplete life to a life that shall be 

 fraternal, a little more certain, a little more happy. The spirit 

 must ideally unite that which in the body is actually sepa- 

 rate ; the individual must sacrifice himself for the race, and 

 substitute for visible things the things that cannot be seen. 

 Need we wonder that the bees do not at the first glance 

 realise what we have not yet disentangled, we who find 

 ourselves at the privileged spot whence instinct radiates from 

 all sides into our consciousness ? And it is curious too, 

 almost touching, to see how the new idea gropes its way, 

 at first, in the darkness that enfolds all things that come to 

 life on this earth. It emerges from matter, it is still quite 

 material. It is cold, hunger, fear, transformed into something 

 that as yet has no shape. It crawls vaguely around great 

 dangers, around the long nights, the approach of winter, of 

 an equivocal sleep which almost is death. . . . 



109 



The Xylocopas are powerful bees which worm their nest 

 in dry wood. Their life is solitary always. Towards the 

 end of summer, however, some individuals of a particular 

 species, the Xylocopa cyanescens, may be found huddled together 

 in a shivering group, on a stalk of asphodel, to spend the 

 winter in common. Among the Xylocopse this tardy fraternity 

 is exceptional, but among the Ceratinas, which are of their 

 nearest kindred, it has become a constant habit. The idea 

 is germinating. It halts immediately ; and hitherto has not 

 succeeded, among the Xylocops, in passing beyond this first 

 obscure line of love. 



2 E 



