As regards the possible effects upon the _Myrmicas_ of having thus frequently to render up food swallowed for their own nourishment, it must be remembered that amongst most ants this is a thing of custom; and, again, it seems probable that there would be an internal sense on the part of the regurgitating individual as to concessions of this nature having gone as far as it was healthy that they should go. As we have seen, they are not infrequently refused. Professor Wheeler, however, came to the conclusion that _Myrmica_ colonies suffer very considerably from this cause, and on this he makes the following comment: “If I have correctly estimated the influences which may tend to diminish the fecundity and prosperity of the _Myrmicas_, we have in this double nest another striking demonstration of the complete absence in ants of any faculty of reason. For if the _Myrmicas_ possessed a glimmer of this faculty they could easily annihilate the gluttonous little nest-mates that are for ever roaming about their galleries like so many animated stomach-pumps.”[56] Yes, truly a _most_ “striking demonstration,” seeing that we human ants can annihilate, all in a moment, any evil that has insensibly gained a footing amongst us, and with which we have been familiarised from birth. Custom, growing gradually from unnoticed beginnings, plays no part at all amongst us—never affects our views in the very slightest degree. In Europe we hang up all the brewers and distillers; whilst mobs of infuriated Chinamen rend in pieces the vendors of opium and crushers of their women’s feet. There is no such thing in _human_ nature as tolerating an evil for the pleasure that lives in it; no _man_ ruins his health, and sinks into an early grave, through being a slave to sensual pleasures. Nor can what is manifestly wrong seem right to _us_; there is no pernicious, obstinate, wilful shutting of _our_ eyes. What a contrast does all this present with such a state of affairs as we are here considering! And how plain it is that there can be no reasoning power in the ant, since reason and right conduct are synonymous with man!