IV


If we had landed here after the great saurians had been swept from
the scene, we might first have considered the lemurs or apes.
They had hands. Aesthetically viewed, the poor simians were simply
grotesque; but travelers who knew other planets might have known what
beauty may spring from an uncouth beginning in this magic universe.

Still--those frowsy, unlovely hordes of apes and monkeys were so
completely lacking in signs of kingship; they were so flighty, too,
in their ways, and had so little purpose, and so much love for
absurd and idle chatter, that they would have struck us, we thought,
as unlikely material. Such traits, we should have reminded ourselves,
persist. They are not easily left behind, even after long stages; and
they form a terrible obstacle to all high advancement.



V


The bees or the ants might have seemed to us more promising. Their
smallness of size was not necessarily too much of a handicap. They
could have made poison their weapon for the subjugation of rivals.
And in these orderly insects there are obviously a capacity for
labor, and co-operative labor at that, which could carry them far.
We all know that they have a marked genius: great gifts of their