The Progress of the Race 
thousand times our importance (these being 
the relations of stature and weight in which 
we stand to the humble honey-fly), one who 
knew not our language, and was endowed 
with senses totally different from our own; 
were such an one to have been studying us, 
he would recognise certain curious material 
transformations in the course of the last 
two-thirds of the century, but would be 
totally unable to form any conception of our 
moral, social, political, economic, or religious 
evolution. 
The most likely of all the scientific hypo- 
theses will presently permit us to connect 
our domestic bee with the great tribe of the 
“ Apiens,” which embraces all wild bees, and 
where its ancestors are probably to be found. 
We shall then perceive physiological, social, 
economic, industrial, and architectural trans- 
formations more extraordinary than those of 
our human evolution. But for the moment 
we will limit ourselves to our domestic bee 
properly so called. Of these sixteen fairly 
distinct species are known; but, essentially, 
whether we consider the pis dorsata, the 
largest known to us, or the Apis florea, 
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