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 civilized 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.