that you and I belong to are of an opposite
kind; and that makes it hard for us to judge ants fairly.

But we and the ants are alike in one matter: the strong love of
property. And instead of merely struggling with Nature for it, they
also fight other ants. The custom of plunder seems to be a part of most
of their wars. This has gone on for ages among them, and continues
today. Raids, ferocious combats, and loot are part of an ant's regular
life. Ant reformers, if there were any, might lay this to their
property sense, and talk of abolishing property as a cure for the evil.
But that would not help for long unless they could abolish the love of
it.

Ants seem to care even more for property than we do ourselves. We men
are inclined to ease up a little when we have all we need. But it is
not so with ants: they can't bear to stop: they keep right on working.
This means that ants do not contemplate: they heed nothing outside of
their own little rounds. It is almost as though their fondness for
labor had closed fast their minds.

Conceivably they might have developed inquiring minds. But this would
have run against their strongest instincts. The ant is knowing and
wise; but he doesn't know enough to take a vacation. The worshipper of
energy is too physically energetic to see that 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.

_SIX_

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. Wha