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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: 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
Kwaidan |
