The Forerunners Part 22

[74] "Um dem guten und gerechten Menschen meine triumphierende Sicherheit zu geben." Introduction [p. 10, English edition].

[75] The most important of these studies have been collected in the great work _Les Fourmis de la Suisse_ (Nouveaux memoires de la Societe helvetique des Sciences naturelles, vol. xxvi, Zurich, 1874), and in the admirable series _Experiences et remarques pratiques sur les sensations des insectes_, published in five parts in the "Rivista di Scienze biologiche," Como, 1900-1901. [Two only of Forel's writings on insects are available in the English language: _The Senses of Insects_, Methuen, London, 1908; and _Ants and some other Insects_, Kegan Paul, London, 1904.] But these works form no more than a fraction of the author's studies written on this subject. Dr. Forel recently told me that since the publication in 1874 of the work which has become a cla.s.sic, he has penned no less than 226 essays upon ants.

[76] Some of these soldier ants function also as butchers, cutting up the prey into small fragments.

[77] _Insect Life_, Macmillan, London, 1901.

[78] _Mutual Aid_, Heinemann, London, 1915.

[79] Auguste Forel, _Les Fourmis de la Suisse_, pp. 261-263.

[80] Op. cit. p. 249.

[81] Polyergus rufescens.

[82] Op. cit. pp. 266-273.

[83] A great cause of error, among those who study insects, is to apply uncritically to an entire genus, observations made upon one or upon a few species. The species of insects are very numerous. Among ants alone, so Forel informs me, there are more than 7,500 species. These species exhibit all shades, all degrees, of instinct.

[84] I am well aware that the concluding statement in the text is in total contradiction with the thought of Auguste Forel, who denies free will. I do not propose here to reopen the agelong dispute between free will and determinism, which seems to me largely verbal. I shall consider the question elsewhere.

[85] For instance, the Inst.i.tut fur Kulturforschung (Inst.i.tute for the Study of Civilisation) of Vienna (see above p. 19). This Inst.i.tute has just founded a Society for the Study of World Civilisation, which issues a periodical ent.i.tled "Erde, a journal for the intellectual life of the whole of mankind." The first number, which comes to hand while I am correcting the proof of these pages, is throughout an ardent confession of "panhumanist" faith.

[86] A Great European, G. F. Nicolai ("demain," October and November 1917).--See Chapter XX above.

[87] Steen Ha.s.selbach, Copenhagen. First issue, October 1, 1918.

[88] Why I left Germany. An open letter to the Unknown who rules Germany.--The German article has been republished in pamphlet form by A.

G. Benteli, b.u.mpliz-Bern, Switzerland, 1918.

[89] In telling this part of the story, Nicolai conceals most of the details of his flight. Too many are implicated, and they would suffer if he were explicit. Already, he tells us, an innocent person, the betrothed of one of his companions, has been imprisoned.--Some day he will write a memoir of his military experiences.

[90] This Aufruf an die Europaer is reprinted, in the first issue of "Das werdende Europa" immediately after the article I have just been a.n.a.lysing, and Nicolai appeals to all readers who sympathise with it to send him their signatures.

[91] Subsequent events have shown that this did not amount to much, after all. The moral abdication of President Wilson, abandoning his own principles without having the honesty to admit the fact, signalises the ruin of that lofty bourgeois idealism which, for a century and a half, gave to the ruling cla.s.s, notwithstanding many mistakes, both strength and prestige. The consequences of such an act are incalculable.