Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/175



ences between the termite castes are probably innate, and that they arise from differences in the constitutional elements of the germ cells that direct the subsequent development of the embryos in the eggs and of the young after hatching. Still, however, there remain questions as to the nature of the force that controls termite behavior. Why do the termites remain together in a community instead of scattering, each to live its own lire as do most other in- sects? Why. do the workers accept their lot and perform all the menial duties assigned to them ? Why do the sol- diers expose themselves fo danger as defenders of the nesrs? Structure can account for rhe things it is im- possible for an animal to do, but if can not explain positive behavior where seemingly rhe animal makes a choice between many lines of possible action open to it. In the communiry of rhe cells that make up rhe body of an animal, as we learned in Chapter IV, organization and controi are brought about eirher rhrough the nerves, which rransmir an activating or inhibiring force to each cell from a central controlling station, or through chemical substances thrown inro the blood. In rhe insect com- munity, however, there is norhing corresponding to either of these regulating influences; nor is there a law- making individual or group of individuals as in human socieries, nor a police force fo execure the orders if any were issued. If would seem rhat there must be some inscrutable power rhar mainrains law and order in the ternaire galleries. Are we, then, fo adroit rhat there is a "spirir of the nest," an "âme collective," as Maeterlinck would have us believe--some pervading force that unites rhe individuais and guides the destinies of the colony as a whole? No, scientists can not accept any such idea as that, because it assumes that nature's resources are no greater than those of man's imagination. Nature is always narural, and her ways and means of accomplish- ing nyrhing, when once discovered, never invoke things

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