After all that has been written of late years about the probable value of
relative experience in the long life of the ant, I suppose that few persons
would venture to deny individual character to the ant. The intelligence of
the little creature in meeting and overcoming difficulties of a totally new
kind, and in adapting itself to conditions entirely foreign to its
experience, proves a considerable power of independent thinking. But this
at least is certain: that the ant has no individuality capable of being
exercised in a purely selfish direction;-- I am using the word "selfish" in
its ordinary acceptation. A greedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of
any one of the seven deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is
unimaginable. Equally unimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an
ideological ant, a poetical ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical
speculations. No human mind could attain to the absolute matter-of-fact
quality of the ant-mind;-- no human being, as now constituted, could
cultivate a mental habit so impeccably practical as that of the ant. But
this superlatively practical mind is incapable of moral error. It would be
difficult, perhaps, to prove that the ant has no religious ideas. But it is
certain that such ideas could not be of any use to it. The being incapable
of moral weakness is beyond the need of "spiritual guidance."



Only in a vague way can we conceive the character of ant-society, and the
nature of ant-morality; and to do even this we must try to imagine some yet
impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us, then, imagine a
world full of people incessantly and furiously working,-- all of whom seem
to be women. No one of these women could be persuaded or deluded into
taking a single atom of food more than is needful to maintain her strength;
and no one of them ever sleeps a second longer than is necessary to keep