And since he asserts that, “when ants die, the survivors set apart a
special place [for their interment], and that their ancestral sepulchres
such a place is,” we have to answer, that the greater the laudations
which he heaps upon irrational animals, so much the more does he magnify
(although against his will) the work of that reason which arranged all
things in order, and points out the skill[793] which exists among men,
and which is capable of adorning by its reason even the gifts which are
bestowed by nature on the irrational creation. But why do I say
“irrational,” since Celsus is of opinion that these animals, which,
agreeably to the common ideas of all men, are termed irrational, are not
really so? Nor does _he_ regard the ants as devoid of reason, who
professed to speak of “universal nature,” and who boasted of his
truthfulness in the inscription of his book. For, speaking of the ants
conversing with one another, he uses the following language: “And when
they meet one another they enter into conversation, for which reason
they never mistake their way; consequently they possess a full endowment
of reason, and some common ideas on certain general subjects, and a
voice by which they express themselves regarding accidental
things.”[794] Now conversation between one man and another is carried on
by means of a voice, which gives expression to the meaning intended, and
which also gives utterances concerning what are called “accidental
things;” but to say that this was the case with ants would be a most
ridiculous assertion.
Footnote 793:
ἐντρέχειαν.
Footnote 794:
οὐκοῦν καὶ λόγου συμπλήρωσίς ἐστι παρ’ αὐτοῖς, καὶ κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι
καθολικῶν, τινων καὶ φωνὴ, καὶ τυγχάνοντα σημαινόμενα.