Social life of insects-Development and preservation of HITHERTO I have dealt with associations of animals the members of which are linked by an actual material bond. In the insect world there are many cases of highly developed colonies. But the organisation of insects is high, and is incompatible with the existence of actual physical connection between the members of the society. In early stages of the development of the social instinct in bees, fully formed and similar individuals join together with the object of securing the safety of their individual lives. Sometimes they act together to drive away a common enemy, sometimes, as in winter, they cling in a mass to maintain their temperature. In such primitive societies, the young are not reared in common. It is only in much more highly developed colonies, such as those of some bees and wasps, and of ants and termites, that the chief object of the common action is care of the progeny. Such an extreme development of the colony is attained only by sacrificing the individuality of the members. There is a far-reaching division of labour, so that the queens, for instance, are mere machines for laying eggs. In hive-bees the queen can no longer judge of what is good for the colony, her intellectual functions being degenerate. She is enclosed in her cell and supported by the workers, who see in her the future of the race. In times of want the worker-bees sacrifice their own lives and give the queen the last remnants of the food-supply so that she survives them. The males are incomplete individuals and are tolerated only so long as they are required, after which the workers kill them remorselessly. The workers, which take such pains for the well-being of the hive, are incomplete individuals. Their brains are well developed and they are well equipped with organs for making wax and collecting food, but their reproductive organs are reduced to mere vestiges incapable of fulfilling their functions. Here then is a case of loss of individual characters increasing with the perfection of the colony. Amongst ants and termites, the social life of which arose quite independently of that of bees, the same course of events has been repeated. High intelligence and skill are confined to the workers, in which the reproductive organs are atrophied. The soldiers have powerful jaws used in defence of the camp, but they, too, are sexually incomplete. The females and males, in which the reproductive organs have attained huge proportions so that the bodies are little more than sacs containing the sexual elements, have no intelligence and very little skill. An extremely curious specialisation, consisting in the formation of honey-bearing workers, occurs in some Mexican ants. Some of the workers of these races absorb so much honey that their bodies become swollen honey-bags. The limbs can no longer support the expanded body, and the insects, reduced to immobility, do not quit the burrows. Normal life has become impossible for these individuals, who soon die for the good of the community. When the normal workers or the sexual individuals are hungry, they approach the honey-bearers and take honey from their mouths. The honey-bearers have become no more than animated cupboards (Fig. 26). ant. + (After Brehm.) The termites belong to quite another FIG. 26-A Honey- class of the group Insecta, but in their case a similar sacrifice of the individual to the state is practised. The females become transformed to shapeless bags of eggs. They cannot move, but remain secluded in the recesses of the "ant"-hill, where they lay as many as 80,000 eggs a day. The soldiers have become provided with jaws so enormous that these unsexed insects can perform no function other than defence of the colony. The partial reduction of individuality in social insects never goes so far as in the cases of the lower animals I have described. It may be stated as a general rule that increase in the perfection of organisation brings with it a more or less complete preservation of individuality in the members of a community. I shall now examine to what extent this law can be applied in the case of man. III SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE HUMAN RACE Human societies-Differentiation in the human race- beings SOCIAL life is for the most part little developed amongst vertebrate animals. The birds and fishes which live in communities present no organisation of society even comparable with that found amongst insects. There is little advance in this respect in the case of mammals, and it is not until we come to man that highly organised societies are to be found. Man is the first vertebrate to develop an organised social life. But, whilst in the insect world, instincts are of supreme importance in the regulation of the community, there is little instinctive action in human communities. The consciousness of individuality, or egoism, is very powerful in human beings, and perhaps for that reason our ancestors made little progress in the development of social relations. Anthropoid apes adhere in little groups or in families. without any true social organisation. Love of the neighbour, or altruism, appears to be a recent and feeble human. acquisition. Although the organisation of human society is far ad vanced and division of labour very complete, there is no differentiation of the individuals comparable with what is found amongst insects. Although in animals so different as Siphonophora, bees, wasps, and termites the development of the community, proceeding along different lines, has brought into existence non-sexual individuals, there is no trace of this specialisation amongst human beings. Certain abnormalities in the condition of the sexual organs are occasionally found in men and women, but these cannot be compared with the production of sexless individuals that has taken place amongst other social creatures. I cannot accept the view that we are to see something analogous to the case of worker bees in the prohibition of sexual relations imposed by some religious systems on a certain number of individuals. But in any event there is little importance in this occurrence, which is rapidly becoming rarer. In recent times, both in Europe and the United States of America, there has been an active development of a femininist movement impelling women towards higher education. Women, no longer content with the avocations of mother and housewife, have pressed into professions such as law and medicine. There is a steady increase in the number of women who study at the Universities, and countries like Germany, which have tried to exclude women from higher studies, will soon have to yield before an irresistible pres sure. Can we regard the results of this movement as analogous to the production of sexless workers which has taken place amongst social insects? I think not. It is undoubtedly true that a certain number of young women, who, for some reason or other are unlikely to marry, devote themselves to scientific study. In these cases, however, celibacy is the cause, not the result of the increased intellectual |