The Life of the Bee 
are numerous proofs and most powerful 
arguments, which yet do not carry irre- 
sistible conviction. We must beware of 
abandoning ourselves unreservedly to the 
prevailing truths of our time. A hundred 
years hence, many chapters of a book 
instinct to-day with this truth, will appear 
as ancient as the philosophical writings of 
the eighteenth century seem to us now, 
full as they are of a too perfect and non- 
existing man, or as so many works of the 
seventeenth century, whose value is less- 
ened by their conception of a harsh and 
narrow god. 
Nevertheless, when it is impossible to 
know what the truth of a thing may be, 
it.is well to accept the hypothesis that 
appeals the most urgently to the reason 
of men at the period when we happen to 
have come into the world. The chances 
are that it will be false; but so long as 
we believe it to be true it will serve a use- 
384 
