he cannot explore certain higher fields until he is still.

Even if such a race had somehow achieved self-consciousness and
reason, would they have been able therewith to rule their instincts,
or to stop work long enough to examine themselves, or the universe,
or to dream of any noble development? Probably not. Reason is
seldom or never the ruler: it is the servant of instinct. It would
therefore have told the ants that incessant toil was useful and good.

"Toil has brought you up from the ruck of things." Reason would
have plausibly said, "it's by virtue of feverish toil that you
have become what you are. Being endlessly industrious is the best
road--for you--to the heights." And, self-reassured, they would
then have had orgies of work; and thus, by devoted exertion, have
blocked their advancement. Work, and order and gain would have
withered their souls.



VI


Let us take the great cats. They are free from this talent for
slave-hood. Stately beasts like the lion have more independence
of mind than the ants,--and a self-respect, we may note, unknown
to primates. Or consider the leopards, with hearts that no tyrant
could master. What fearless and resolute leopard-men they could
have fathered! How magnificently such a civilization would have
made its force tell!