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642

From The National Review.
INSECT COMMUNISTS.

be increased - of mastery over fire, wind, water, and electricity; from the Obi man's charms for disease to the surgery of today; from the imperfect, guttural grunting still heard for speech in the lowest races of men to the music and the flexibility and the finely shaded meaning of even ordinary educated talk; from the undressed skins of beasts for clothing to cotton and tweed, muslin and silk, flannel and my lady's furs; from a diet of rudely charred flesh, uncooked fish, and wild berries to the multitudinous cheap as well as costly food-stuffs of to-day; from famine ever stalking the tribe, and carrying off hordes at frequent intervals when the fresh food-supply of nature failed for a month or so, to the store of grain, pulses, and live-stock by which now the price of food is kept at a fairly even level; from the

SOCIAL experiments are not easily tried. The people who are willing to come out from the mass of their fellows and live in the isolation of a new social order, startlingly different from the plan of life of the rest of their contemporaries, are not necessarily the people who are best fitted to make such an experiment succeed. Those who are ripe for change and novelty are not, in the nature of the case, likely to be most successful with the business of daily life. It is, therefore, open to the modern Socialist, when he presses his scheme for the reorganization of society on a communistic basis, to repudiate the several attempts that have been made by his predecessors to live out their ideas. He may say that New Lanark, and Oneida Creek, and the rest of the defunct Socialistic hand-to-mouth, daily struggle with nature communities, were conducted by peculiar people, and were, therefore, doomed to failure from the first; but that if only all society, men of every form of talent and character, could be compelled to live on communistic principles, as they all live now on individualistic ones, the result would be entirely different from anything hitherto seen.

in the raw to the great resources of capital, the machinery, the roads, the credit system, the division of labor, and the rest of the elaboration of our social economy of to-day. This progress has been based, to put it in its harsh and blunt truth, upon selfishness. It has been achieved, and it is now being continued, by men seeking primarily their own welfare, and struggling It is open to the Socialist to make this for the improvement of their own particuassertion. Yet before our modern civili-lar circumstances. Men invent and diszation is drawn on much farther in the cover, and men toil to the utmost of their road that he would have us follow, it would powers with mind and body, and men save be decidedly satisfactory if we could see and apply their savings to future producthe experiment of communism succeed on tion, for their own individual advantage a small scale. Amongst men, it has never and advancement in the first place, and yet succeeded. All efforts to organize a for that of those near and dear to them in society, on such a plan have come to a the second. What is there to replace speedy end. The basis of individualism this motive if it be removed? is that upon which society has progressed The individualistic basis for society from savagery to civilization. By individ- seems to the political economist not so ual effort for personal and family advan- much the best of all possible plans, as the tage, mankind has been slowly advanced only plan possible, for the organization from general destitution to comparative into a complex social unity of a vast mulcomfort for all (even paupers and slum titude of individuals, of all varieties of dwellers of to-day enjoying vast advan- strength, capacity, and taste. Moreover, tages as compared with primitive man); men are able to increase their numbers far from tyrannical control by the stronger more rapidly than they can their means of over the weaker to a large measure of subsistence; and parental prudence, impersonal freedom; from superstitious, perfectly exercised as it is at present, is priest-ridden fear to self-respecting search imperatively necessary to prevent famine into truth; from absolute slavery beneath and overcrowding. The political econothe forces of nature, to a degree-yet to mist rests his hope (which is as ardent as

So say the Socialists; and do not offer an opinion as to the æons which must elapse before this communal industry and altruistic economy might be expected to be developed from the present low state of selfishness. But let not the political economist rashly deny the possibility of such evolution, for the thing exists to-day.

In our midst there are a hundred thousand separate nations, in each of which individuality is entirely subordinated to communality. The most intense labor is

if more sober than that of the Socialist) | in solid coin or social credit, he would for improving the lot of the poorest in the then work just as hard and as well for future largely on the growth of parental nothing but the communal wealth and prudence, induced by the experience of prosperity. the suffering caused by parental recklessness; and he therefore regards with dismay the loss of all sense of responsibility on the part of individuals for the feeding and nurture of those to whom they give life. How, under Socialism, is man's judgment and self-restraint to be aroused to avert the cruel but necessary consequences of reckless rapidity in multiplying population want, over-work, disease, and famine? To the political economist, again, it appears obvious that a lazy, leisure-loving creature like man, can only be voluntarily undergone for the benefit of induced to work regularly and persistently, whether to produce the necessaries of civilized life or to increase his knowledge and skill, by the expectation that he will reap a reward in his own person from his exertions. So, too, it seems certain to the political economist that saving or deferring the enjoyment of wealth to a future date, will only result from the conviction of the individual that he and those dear to him will gain in the long run by such procrastination of the use of his possessions. Now, since the prosperity of mankind depends upon, first, as extensive and skilful production as possible and, next, on the saving habits by which the means of future production are provided, it follows that the present system of individualism, or enlightened self-seeking, is the only one which can be reasonably employed for the organization of society. Thus, on fundamental grounds, without touching the details of difficulty, the political economist scouts Socialism.

the race. Forethought and wisdom, no less than bodily exertion, are lavishly expended in the general interest; nay, individuals never hesitate to immolate themselves for the good of a posterity that is not their own offspring, and that neither they nor their friends will ever behold. Again, the wealth of these communities is a common stock; no one hoards for himself or his own children, yet they do hoard like misers, for the good of the whole. Here, then, is energetic and self-devoted toil, here is careful and persistent economy, entirely for the communal advantage, and with, the most absolute unselfishness in the individual. Here, in short, is the ideal of the Socialist-in the hive of the honey-bee.

Then such a state is possible; and we have nothing to do but to find out how to bring the inferior race of humankind up to this higher standard of social being. But let us not be rash and hasty in effecting such a radical alteration in our manners. Let us observe, before we take action, what are the conditions of existence in the socialistic community of the insect world.

But the Socialist replies by urging the possibility of a great development of the communal instinct. That this altruism does exist now, and influence conduct to some degree, is shown whenever an ear- Division of labor is carried to its highnest thought or act is given by a man to est pitch of perfection amongst the honeyhis country's service, without any ulterior bees. They first divide the great duties personal object in view. Since this is of life under two headings: those con sometimes seen now, it might clearly becerned with the present maintenance of come more common, and then might grow the communal existence, and those conto be the moving spring of action in all cerned with its perpetuation. minds; so that, whereas a man now does his daily work for his own benefit, either

Everybody is probably aware that the bees in a normal hive are of three kinds,

S

P

de

to a more encouraging situation, the same queen will at once commence to lay with great rapidity.

As inferentially stated in the last sen

viz., a queen, drones, and workers. The queen would be more accurately termed the mother of the hive. The regal title is somewhat of a misnomer, as it does not appear that she exercises any sovereigntence, the comb in which workers are to power. Great attention is shown to her, be hatched differs from that designed for but this springs, probably, less from re- drones, and queen cells are again distincspect to her individually than from a sense tively formed. The queen cells are the of the paramount importance of her well-largest, but the drone cradles are larger being and activity to the community. To than the worker ones. The eggs from lay eggs is her being's sole end and aim. which the drones and workers respectively There is one way, indeed, in which she are developed also differ. truly resembles a human sovereign, and that is in her isolation from the companionship of her equals. The queen spends practically the whole of her existence in the dark recesses of the hive. Only a few times does she issue forth at all, and then she does not go to visit her compeers, the sovereigns of neighboring communities. In fact, the queen goes out only on business. First of all, on one of the early days of her life, she travels forth a-husband-hunting, and after having gained the dignity of matronage, she does not think of stirring outside the door again till she has reared such a numerous progeny that the emigration of a large body of them from the old home becomes imperative. Then the gracious mother and queen goes with the departing swarms, enters with them upon a new abode, and at once resumes her maternal labors. The queen never leaves the hive for any other purpose, or on any other occasion, than these two: her own wedding and the emigration of a body of her children.

The queen is capable of laying drone eggs while she remains unmarried; the drones are, in fact, her progeny alone, and owe no debt for existence to a father. This is abundantly proved in a variety of ways. One of the simplest and most interesting of these proofs is supplied when a queen of one species intermarries with a drone of another. Suppose, for instance, an Italian queen, known by the three yellow bands which these bees bear upon the body, to have been mated with an English or plain black drone. The drones produced by this mother will be pure Italians like herself, but the workers and the princesses that she will lay will be hybrids.

Both

A queen will lay from one to three thousand eggs per day during the sum mer. Every attention is paid to her by her subjects during her dull and laborious confinement to the hive. She is treated with the most servile courtliness. honey and partly digested pollen are handed to her in abundance. The bees Her daily life is monotonous to a de- who are nearest to her stand in a closely gree. The worker bees prepare the comb, crowded circle around her, with their with its well-known hexagonal cells or heads all turned towards her. When she cavities; the queen steps about upon this, moves, they skurry back, pushing over solemnly inspecting the cells, and laying one another in their eager haste to make in each in turn the kind of egg which is way for the mother of the hive, but still suitable to its form. Her function is not not turning their backs upon her. The purely mechanical, in so far as this: that scene presents a ludicrous likeness to the she observes the character of the cell in etiquette of courtiers in attendance on which she is about to lay, and varies her royalty. It is a moot point whether the deposit in accordance with the circum- queen is surrounded by special guards stances in this respect. Moreover, she and courtiers, or whether it is merely that appears to exercise her judgment as to all those ordinary members of the com. how many eggs she will produce. When munity who accidentally happen to be the honey is scarce, or when the popula- near her pay her such homage. Modern tion of the hive is already strong, a queen bee-keepers incline to the latter idea, but will deposit but few eggs; but if removed | there are some instances on record in

to is

the