. The facts have been arrived at only through the study
of hundreds of different kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and
it is only by the consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical
picture which I shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are
probably about five thousand different species of ants, and these
different species represent many different stages of social evolution,
from the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and
moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a number of
the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. Also, I must remind
you that the morality of the ant, by the necessity of circumstance, does
not extend beyond the limits of its own species. Impeccably ethical within
the community, ants carry on war outside their own borders; were it not
for this, we might call them morally perfect creatures.

Although the mind of an ant can not be at all like to the mind of the
human being, it is so intelligent that we are justified in trying to
describe its existence by a kind of allegorical comparison with human
life. Imagine, then, a world full of women, working night and
day,--building, tunnelling, bridging,--also engaged in agriculture, in
horticulture, and in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may
remark that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and
eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is
scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and brushes
about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In addition to
this constant work, these women have to take care of myriads of
children,--children so delicate that the slightest change in the weather
may kill them. So the children have to be carried constantly from one
place to another in order to keep them warm.

Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no one of them
would eat or drink a single atom more than is necessary; and none of them
would sleep for one second longer than is necessary. Now comes a
surprising fact, about which a great deal must be said later on. These
women have no sex. They are women, for they sometimes actually give birth,
as virgins, to children; but they are incapable of wedlock. They are more
than vestals. Sex is practically suppressed.

This world of workers is protected by an army of soldiers. The soldiers
are very large, very strong, and shaped so differently from the