The Life of the Bee 



forms temporary associations (the Pan" 

 urgi, the Dasypodce, the Hacliti, etc.) 

 and at last we arriv^e, through successive 

 stages, at the almost perfect but pitiless 

 society of our hives, where the individual 

 is entirely merged in the republic, and 

 the republic in its turn invariably sacri- 

 ficed to the abstract and immortal city of 

 the future, 



[8] 



Let us not too hastily deduce from 

 these facts conclusions that apply to man. 

 He possesses the power of withstanding 

 certain of nature's laws ; and to know 

 whether such resistance be right or wrong 

 is the gravest and obscurest point in his 

 morality. But it is deeply interesting 

 to discover what the will of nature may 

 be in a different world ; and this will 

 is revealed with extraordinary clearness in 

 the evolution of the hymenoptera, which, 

 32 



