Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
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.
IV
Now for stranger facts:—
This world of incessant toil is a more than Vestal world. It is true
that males can sometimes be perceived in it; but they appear only at
particular seasons, and they have nothing whatever to do with the
workers or with the work. None of them would presume to address a
worker,—except, perhaps, under extraordinary circumstances of common
peril. And no worker would think of talking to a male;—for males, in
this queer world, are inferior beings, equally incapable of fighting or
working, and tolerated only as necessary evils. One special class of
females,—the Mothers-Elect of the race,—do condescend to consort with
males, during a very brief period, at particular seasons. But the
Mothers-Elect do not work; and they _must_ accept husbands. A worker
could not even dream of keeping company with a male,—not merely because
such association would signify the most frivolous waste of time, nor
yet because the worker necessarily regards all males with unspeakable
contempt; but because the worker is incapable of wedlock. Some workers,
indeed, are capable of parthenogenesis, and give birth to children who
never had fathers. As a general rule, however, the worker is truly
feminine by her moral instincts only: she has all the tenderness, the
patience, and the foresight that we call “maternal;” but her sex has
disappeared, like the sex of the Dragon-Maiden in the Buddhist legend.
For defense against creatures of prey, or enemies of the state, the
workers are provided with weapons; and they are furthermore protected
by a large military force. The warriors are so much bigger than the
workers (in some communities, at least) that it is difficult, at first
sight, to believe them of the same race. Soldiers one hundred times
larger than the workers whom they guard are not uncommon. But all these
soldiers are Amazons,—or, more correctly speaking, semi-females. They
can work sturdily; but being built for fighting and for heavy pulling
chiefly, their usefulness is restricted to those directions in which
force, rather than skill, is required.
[Why females, rather than males, should have been evolutionally
specialized into soldiery and laborers may not be nearly so simple a
question as it appears. I am very sure of not being able to answer it.
But natural economy may have decided the matter. In many forms of life,
the female greatly exceeds the male in bulk and in energy;—perhaps, in
this case, the larger reserve of life-force possessed originally by the
complete female could be more rapidly and effectively utilized for the
development of a special fighting-caste. All energies which, in the
fertile female, would be expended in the giving of life seem here to
have been diverted to the evolution of aggressive power, or
working-capacity.]
Of the true females,—the Mothers-Elect,—there are very few indeed; and
these are treated like queens. So constantly and so reverentially are
they waited upon that they can seldom have any wishes to express. They
are relieved from every care of existence,—except the duty of bearing
offspring. Night and day they are cared for in every possible manner.
They alone are superabundantly and richly fed:—for the sake of the
offspring they must eat and drink and repose right royally; and their
physiological specialization allows of such indulgence _ad libitum_.
They seldom go out, and never unless attended by a powerful escort; as
they cannot be permitted to incur unnecessary fatigue or danger.
Probably they have no great desire to go out. Around them revolves the
whole activity of the race: all its intelligence and toil and thrift
are directed solely toward the well-being of these Mothers and of their
children.
But last and least of the race rank the husbands of these Mothers,—the
necessary Evils,—the males. They appear only at a particular season, as
I have already observed; and their lives are very short. Some cannot
even boast of noble descent, though destined to royal wedlock; for they
are not royal offspring, but virgin-born,—parthenogenetic
children,—and, for that reason especially, inferior beings, the chance
results of some mysterious atavism. But of any sort of males the
commonwealth tolerates but few,—barely enough to serve as husbands for
the Mothers-Elect, and these few perish almost as soon as their duty
has been done. The meaning of Nature’s law, in this extraordinary
world, is identical with Ruskin’s teaching that life without effort is
crime; and since the males are useless as workers or fighters, their
existence is of only momentary importance. They are not, indeed,
sacrificed,—like the Aztec victim chosen for the festival of
Tezcatlipoca, and allowed a honeymoon of twenty days before his heart
was torn out. But they are scarcely less unfortunate in their high
fortune. Imagine youths brought up in the knowledge that they are
destined to become royal bridegrooms for a single night,—that after
their bridal they will have no moral right to live,—that marriage, for
each and all of them, will signify certain death,—and that they cannot
even hope to be lamented by their young widows, who will survive them
for a time of many generations...!
V
But all the foregoing is no more than a proem to the real “Romance of
the Insect-World.”
—By far the most startling discovery in relation to this astonishing
civilization is that of the suppression of sex. In certain advanced
forms of ant-life sex totally disappears in the majority of
individuals;—in nearly all the higher ant-societies sex-life appears to
exist only to the extent absolutely needed for the continuance of the
species. But the biological fact in itself is much less startling than
the ethical suggestion which it offers;—_for this practical
suppression, or regulation, of sex-faculty appears to be voluntary!_
Voluntary, at least, so far as the species is concerned. It is now
believed that these wonderful creatures have learned how to develop, or
to arrest the development, of sex in their young,—by some particular
mode of nutrition. They have succeeded in placing under perfect control
what is commonly supposed to be the most powerful and unmanageable of
instincts. And this rigid restraint of sex-life to within the limits
necessary to provide against extinction is but one (though the most
amazing) of many vital economies effected by the race. Every capacity
for egoistic pleasure—in the common meaning of the word “egoistic”—has
been equally repressed through physiological modification. No
indulgence of any natural appetite is possible except to that degree in
which such indulgence can directly or indirectly benefit the
species;—even the indispensable requirements of food and sleep being
satisfied only to the exact extent necessary for the maintenance of
healthy activity. The individual can exist, act, think, only for the
communal good; and the commune triumphantly refuses, in so far as
cosmic law permits, to let itself be ruled either by Love or Hunger.
Most of us have been brought up in the belief that without some kind of
religious creed—some hope of future reward or fear of future
punishment—no civilization could exist. We have been taught to think
that in the absence of laws based upon moral ideas, and in the absence
of an effective police to enforce such laws, nearly everybody would
seek only his or her personal advantage, to the disadvantage of
everybody else. The strong would then destroy the weak; pity and
sympathy would disappear; and the whole social fabric would fall to