I hope my reader is aware that ants practise horticulture and
agriculture; that they are skillful in the cultivation of mushrooms;
that they have domesticated (according to present knowledge) five
hundred and eighty-four different kinds of animals; that they make
tunnels through solid rock; that they know how to provide against
atmospheric changes which might endanger the health of their children;
and that, for insects, their longevity is exceptional,—members of the
more highly evolved species living for a considerable number of years.
But it is not especially of these matters that I wish to speak. What I
want to talk about is the awful propriety, the terrible morality, of
the ant[1]. Our most appalling ideals of conduct fall short of the
ethics of the ant,—as progress is reckoned in time,—by nothing less
than millions of years!... When I say “the ant,” I mean the highest
type of ant,—not, of course, the entire ant-family. About two thousand
species of ants are already known; and these exhibit, in their social
organizations, widely varying degrees of evolution. Certain social
phenomena of the greatest biological importance, and of no less
importance in their strange relation to the subject of ethics, can be
studied to advantage only in the existence of the most highly evolved
societies of ants.
After all that has been written of late years about the probable value
of relative experience in the long life of the ant, I suppose that few
persons would venture to deny individual character to the ant. The
intelligence of the little creature in meeting and overcoming
difficulties of a totally new kind, and in adapting itself to
conditions entirely foreign to its experience, proves a considerable
power of independent thinking. But this at least is certain: that the
ant has no individuality capable of being exercised in a purely selfish
direction;—I am using the word “selfish” in its ordinary acceptation. A
greedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one of the seven
deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally
unimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical
ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human mind
could attain to the absolute matter-of-fact quality of the ant-mind;—no
human being, as now constituted, could cultivate a mental habit so
impeccably practical as that of the ant. But this superlatively
practical mind is incapable of moral error. It would be difficult,
perhaps, to prove that the ant has no religious ideas. But it is
certain that such ideas could not be of any use to it. The being
incapable of moral weakness is beyond the need of “spiritual guidance.”
Only in a vague way can we conceive the character of ant-society, and
the nature of ant-morality; and to do even this we must try to imagine
some yet impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us,
then, imagine a world full of people incessantly and furiously
working,—all of whom seem to be women. No one of these women could be
persuaded or deluded into taking a single atom of food more than is
needful to maintain her strength; and no one of them ever sleeps a
second longer than is necessary to keep her nervous system in good
working-order. And all of them are so peculiarly constituted that the
least unnecessary indulgence would result in some derangement of
function.
The work daily performed by these female laborers comprises
road-making, bridge-building, timber-cutting, architectural
construction of numberless kinds, horticulture and agriculture, the
feeding and sheltering of a hundred varieties of domestic animals, the
manufacture of sundry chemical products, the storage and conservation
of countless food-stuffs, and the care of the children of the race. All
this labor is done for the commonwealth—no citizen of which is capable
even of thinking about “property,” except as a _res publica;_—and the
sole object of the commonwealth is the nurture and training of its
young,—nearly all of whom are girls. The period of infancy is long: the
children remain for a great while, not only helpless, but shapeless,
and withal so delicate that they must be very carefully guarded against
the least change of temperature. Fortunately their nurses understand
the laws of health: each thoroughly knows all that she ought to know in
regard to ventilation, disinfection, drainage, moisture, and the danger
of germs,—germs being as visible, perhaps, to her myopic sight as they
become to our own eyes under the microscope. Indeed, all matters of
hygiene are so well comprehended that no nurse ever makes a mistake
about the sanitary conditions of her neighborhood.
In spite of this perpetual labor no worker remains unkempt: each is
scrupulously neat, making her toilet many times a day. But as every
worker is born with the most beautiful of combs and brushes attached to
her wrists, no time is wasted in the toilet-room. Besides keeping
themselves strictly clean, the workers must also keep their houses and
gardens in faultless order, for the sake of the children. Nothing less
than an earthquake, an eruption, an inundation, or a desperate war, is
allowed to interrupt the daily routine of dusting, sweeping, scrubbing,
and disinfecting.