working
females that they do not seem at first to belong to the same race. They
help in the work, though they are not able to help in some delicate kinds
of work--they are too clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing
fact: these soldiers are all women--amazons, we might call them; but they
are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed.

You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children are born of
special mothers--females chosen for the purpose of bearing offspring, and
not allowed to do anything else. They are treated almost like empresses,
being constantly fed and attended and served, and being lodged in the best
way possible. Only these can eat and drink at all times--they must do so
for the sake of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless
strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of danger or
of injury The life of the whole race circles about them and about their
children, but they are very few.

Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why females should
have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. It appears that the
females have more reserve force, and all the force that might have been
utilized in the giving of life has been diverted to the making of
aggressive powers. The real males are very small and weak. They appear to
be treated with indifference and contempt. They are suffered to become the
bridegrooms of one night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast,
the lives of the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four
years, but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary
function.

In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have most
impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now comes the
last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression of sex is not
natural, but artificial--I mean that it is voluntary. It has been
discovered that ants are able, by a systematic method of nourishment, to
suppress or develop sex as they please. The race has decided that sex
shall not be allowed to exist except in just so far as it is absolutely
necessary to the existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated
only as necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all
passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at large.
It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war or a calamity
of some kind, it is called i