of so short a lecture. It is especially the social conditions of the ants which has inspired these new ideas; but you must not think that any one species of ants furnishes us with all the facts. The facts have been arrived at only through the study of hundreds of different kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and it is only by the consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical picture which I shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are probably about five thousand different species of ants, and these different species represent many different stages of social evolution, from the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilised and moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a number of the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. Also, I must remind you that the morality of the ant, by the necessity of circumstance, does not extend beyond the limits of its own species. Impeccably ethical within the community, ants carry on war outside their own borders; were it not for this, we might call them morally perfect creatures.

Although the mind of an ant can not be at all like the mind of the human being, it is so intelligent that we are justified in trying to describe its existence by a kind of allegorical comparison with human life. Imagine, then, a world full of women, working night and day,—building, tunnelling, bridging,—also engaged in agriculture, in horticulture, and in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may remark that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and brushes about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In addition to this constant work, these women have to take care of myriads of children,-children so delicate that the slightest change in the weather may kill them. So the children have to be carried constantly from one place to another in order to keep them warm.

Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no one of them would eat or drink a single atom more than is necessary; and none of them would sleep for one second longer than is necessary. Now comes a surprising fact, about which a great deal must be said later on. These women have no sex. They are women, for they sometimes actually give birth, as virgins, to children; but they are incapable of wedlock. They are more than vestals. Sex is practically suppressed.

This world of workers is protected by an army of soldiers. The soldiers are very large, very strong, and shaped so differently from the working females that they do not seem at first to belong to the same race. They help in the work, though they are not able to help in some delicate kinds of work-they are too clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing fact: these soldiers are all womenamazons, we might call them; but they are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed.

You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children are born of special mothers-females chosen for the purpose of bearing offspring, and not allowed to do anything else. They are treated almost like empresses, being constantly fed and attended and served, and being lodged in the best way possible. Only these can eat and drink at all times-they must do so for the sake of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of danger or of injury. The life of the whole race circles about them and about their children, but they are very few.

Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why females should have been specialised into soldiers instead of men. It appears that the females have more reserve force, and all the force that might have been utilised in the giving of life has been diverted to the making of aggressive powers. The real males are very small and weak. They appear to be treated with indifference and

telling the more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of to-day is quite possible, that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man," and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of twentieth century science.

CHAPTER XIII

ON TREE SPIRITS IN WESTERN POETRY

REALLY one of the very best ways in which to utilise the resources of European poetry you will find to be the establishment of the romantic or emotional relations of that poetry to Japanese literature and legend. Last year one of the literary class wrote for me a very pretty version of the wonderful old story of the Sanjiusan-gendo, and I thought, while reading it, that it was rather strange that no effort had been made to call the attention of literary students to the beautiful stories of the same class existing in western literature. To-day I am going to attempt to show you how the same idea as that of the Japanese legend produced some beautiful literature in the West.

The best stories of this class-indeed, the best of any class belonging to what has so well been called zoological mythology,—are Greek. Many of the Greek stories you have heard something about. You know that the cypress tree was once a beautiful boy called Kuparissos (if we spell the name the true Greek way-otherwise Cyparissus) and that he killed, by mistake, a pet deer, and therefore would have died of grief, had not the god changed him into the tree that still bears his name. You have heard no doubt that the anemone, or "wind-flower," is the flower of young Adonisthat he was changed into it after having been mortally wounded by a wild boar. It was at that time that the rose, originally white, became red; for the goddess Aphrodite, hurrying to help Adonis, tore her beautiful feet with the thorns of the plant, whose flowers remained red with her blood. Doubtless you know that the flower Narcissus bears the name of the handsome youth who refused the love of the

telling the more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of to-day is quite possible, that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man," and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of twentieth century science.