no doubt limited, still I do not think
that any one who has studied the life-history of Ants can draw any
fundamental line of separation between instinct and reason.

When we see a community of Ants working together in perfect harmony, it
is impossible not to ask ourselves how far they are mere exquisite
automatons; how far they are conscious beings? When we watch an ant-hill
tenanted by thousands of industrious inhabitants, excavating chambers,
forming tunnels, making roads, guarding their home, gathering food,
feeding the young, tending their domestic animals--each one fulfilling
its duties industriously, and without confusion,--it is difficult
altogether to deny to them the gift of reason; and all our recent
observations tend to confirm the opinion that their mental powers differ
from those of men, not so much in kind as in degree.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] _The Horse._

[12] Lubbock, _Fifty Years of Science_.

[13] _The Open Air._

[14] _Ants, Bees, and Wasps._

CHAPTER III

ON ANIMAL LIFE--_continued_

An organic being is a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a
host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and
numerous as the stars of heaven.

DARWIN.

CHAPTER III

ON ANIMAL LIFE--_continued._

We constantly speak of animals as free. A fish, says Ruskin, "is much
freer than a Man; and as to a fly, it is a black incarnation of
freedom." It is pleasant to think of anything as free, but in this case
the idea is, I fear, to a great extent erroneous. Young animals may
frolic and play, but older ones take life very seriously. About the
habits of fish and flies, indeed, as yet we know very little. Any one,
however, who will watch animals will soon satisfy himself how diligently
they work. Even when they seem to be idling over flowers, or wandering
aimlessly about, they are in truth diligently seeking for food, or
collecting materials for nests. The industry of Bees is proverbial. When
collecting honey or pollen they often visit over twenty flowers in a
minute, keeping constantly to one species, without yielding a moment's
dalliance to any more sweet or lovely tempter. Ants fully deserve the
commendation of Solomon. Wasps have not the same reputation for
industry; but I have watched them from before four in the morning till
dark at night working like animated machines without a moment's rest or
intermission. Sundays and Bank Holidays are a