One bee group-mother, crawling from cell to cell, lays eggs unnumbered for the common care; the other group-mothers, their own egg-laying capacity in abeyance, labour unceasingly in the interests of those common eggs; and the delicate perfection of provision and service thus attained results in--what? In a marvellous motherhood and a futile fatherhood; the predominant female, the almost negligible male--a temporary fertilising agent merely; in infinite reproduction, and that is all; in more bees, and more ants, more and more for ever, like the sands of the sea. They would cover the earth like a blanket but for merciful appetites of other creatures. But this is only multiplication--not improvement. Nature has one more law to govern life besides self-preservation and reproduction--progress. To be, to re-be, and to be better is the law. It is not enough to keep one's self alive, it is not enough to keep one's kind alive, we must improve. This law of growth, which is the grand underlying one that moves the universe, acts on living species mainly through the male. He is progressive where the female is conservative by nature. He is a variant where she is the race type. This tendency to vary is one of the most beneficent in nature. Through it comes change, and, through change, improvement. The unbridled flow of maternal energy is capable of producing an exquisite apparatus for child-rearing, and no more. The masculine energy is needed also, for the highest evolution. Well is it for the human race that the male savage finally took hold of the female's industry. Whether he perceived her superiority and sought to emulate it is doubtful; more probably it was the pressure of economic conditions which slowly forced him to it. The glaring proofs of time taught him that the pasture was more profitable than the hunting ground, and the cornfield than the pasture. The accumulating riches produced by the woman's industry drew him on. Slowly, reluctantly, the lordly fighter condescended to follow the humble worker, who led him by thousands of years. In the hands of the male, industry developed. The woman is a patient, submissive, inexhaustible labourer. The pouring forces of maternity prompt her to work for ever--for her young. Not so the man. Working is with him an acquired habit, and acquired very late in his racial life. The low-grade man still in his heart despises it, he still prefers to be waited on by women, he still feels most at home in hunting and fighting. And man alone being represented in the main fields of modern industry, this male instinct for hunting and fighting plays havoc with the true economic processes. He makes a warfare of business, he makes prey of his competitors, he still seeks to enslave--to make others work for him, instead of freely and joyously working all he can. The best industrial progress needs both elements--ours is but a compromise as yet, something between the beehive and the battlefield.