The Life of the Bee 
labours no less than in its internal economy, 
it is able to establish a rational distribution 
of the number of workers without ever 
disturbing the principle of the division of 
labour.” 
is 
But what have we to do, some will ask, 
with the intelligence of the bees? What 
concern is it of ours whether this be a little 
less or a little more? Why weigh, with such 
infinite care, a minute fragment of almost 
invisible matter, as though it were a fluid 
whereon depended the destiny of man? 1 
hold, and exaggerate nothing, that our 
interest herein is of the most considerable. 
The discovery of a sign of true intellect 
outside ourselves procures us something of 
the emotion Robinson Crusoe felt when he 
saw the imprint of a human foot on the 
sandy beach of his island. We seem less 
solitary than we had believed. And indeed, 
in our endeavour to understand the intel- 
lect of the bees, we are studying in them 
that which is most precious in our own 
substance: an atom of the extraordinary 
144 
