great sheds full of wheels that forever turn round and round, or close by the shipping, or in obscure hovels, or on small plots of earth that from sunrise to sunset they are constantly delving and digging. We are led to believe that this labour must be an offence, and punishable. For the persons guilty of it are housed in filthy, ruinous, squalid cabins. They are clothed in some colourless hide. So great does their ardour appear for this noxious, or at any rate useless activity, that they scarcely allow themselves time to eat or to sleep. In numbers they are to the others as a thousand to one. It is remarkable that the species should have been able to survive to this day under conditions so unfavourable to its development. It should be mentioned, however, that apart from this characteristic devotion to their wearisome toil, they appear inoffensive and docile; and satisfied with the leavings of those who evidently are the guardians, if not the saviours, of the race." {18} Is it not strange that the hive, which we vaguely survey from the height of another world, should provide our first questioning glance with so sure and profound a reply? Must we not admire the manner in which the thought or the god that the bees obey is at once revealed by their edifices, wrought with such striking conviction, by their customs and laws, their political and economical organisation, their virtues, and even their cruelties? Nor is this god, though it be perhaps the only one to which man has as yet never offered serious worship, by any means the least reasonable or the least legitimate that we can conceive. The god of the bees is the future. When we, in our study of human history, endeavour to gauge the moral force or greatness of a people or race, we have but one standard of measurement--the dignity and permanence of their ideal, and the abnegation wherewith they pursue it. Have we often encountered an ideal more conformable to the desires of the universe, more widely manifest, more disinterested or sublime; have we often discovered an abnegation more complete and heroic? {19}