The Foundation of the City 
matter which possesses, wherever it attach 
itself, the magnificent power of transfiguring 
blind necessity, of organising, embellishing, 
and multiplying life; and, most striking 
of all, of holding in suspense the obstinate 
force of death and the mighty, irresponsible 
wave that wraps almost all that exists in an 
eternal unconsciousness. 
Were we sole possessors of the particle of 
matter that, when maintained in a special 
condition of flower or incandescence, we 
term the intellect, we should be to some 
extent entitled to look on ourselves as 
privileged beings, and to imagine that in 
us nature achieved some kind of aim; but 
here we discover, in the hymenoptera, an 
entire category of beings in whom a more or 
less identical aim is achieved. And this 
fact, though it decide nothing perhaps, still 
holds an honourable place in the mass of 
tiny facts that help to throw light on our 
position in this world. It affords even, 
if considered from a certain point of view, 
a fresh proof of the most enigmatic part 
of our being; for the superpositions of 
destinies that we find in the hive are 
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