The Life of the Bee 
alone, in wretchedness, often not seeing 
her offspring (the Prosopis, the Colletes, 
&c.), sometimes living in the midst of 
the limited family that she produces 
annually (as in the case of the humble- 
bee). Then she forms temporary associa- 
tions (the Panurgi, the Dasypode, the 
Hacliti, &c.), and at last we arrive, through 
successive stages, at the almost perfect but 
pitiless society of our hives, where the in- 
dividual 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, 
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 clear- 
ness in the evolution of the hymenoptera, 
26 
