The Life of the Bee 
conviction, by their customs and laws, 
their political and economical organisation, 
their virtues, and even their cruelties? 
Nor is this god, though it be perhaps the 
only one to which man has as yet never 
offered serious worship, by any means the 
least reasonable or the least legitimate 
that we can conceive. The god of the 
bees is the future. When we, in our 
study of human history, endeavour to 
gauge the moral force or greatness of a 
people or race, we have but one standard 
of measurement — the dignity and perma- 
nence of their ideal, and the abnegation 
wherewith they pursue it. Have we often 
encountered an ideal more conformable to 
the desires of the universe, more widely 
manifest, more disinterested or sublime; 
have we often discovered an abnegation 
more complete and heroic? 
66 
