to sleep. In numbers they are to the others as a thousand to one. It
is remarkable that the species should have been able to survive to
this day under conditions so unfavourable to its development. It
should be mentioned, however, that apart from this characteristic
devotion to their wearisome toil, they appear inoffensive and
docile; and satisfied with the leavings of those who evidently are
the guardians, if not the saviours, of the race."

[18]

Is it not strange that the hive, which we vaguely survey from the
height of another world, should provide our first questioning glance
with so sure and profound a reply? Must we not admire the manner in
which the thought or the god that the bees obey is at once revealed
by their edifices, wrought with such striking 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 permanence 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?

[19]