CHAPTER V
TERMITES
lt was the custom, not long ago, to teach the inexperienced that the will can achieve whatever ambition may desire. "Believe that you can, and you can, ifonly you work hard enough"; this was the subjéct of many a maxim very en- couraging, no doubt, to the young adventurer, but just as likely to lead to a bench in I.'nion Square as to a Fifth Avenue studio or a seat in the Stock Exchange. Now it is the fashion to give us mental tests and voca- tional suggestions, and we are admonished that it is no use trying to be one thing if nature bas made us for some- thing else. This is sound advice; the only trouble is the difficulty of being able to detect at an eariy age the char- acters t?at are to distingtfish a pl.umber from a doctor, a cook from an actress, or a financier from an entomologist. Of course, there really are differences between all classes of people from the time they are born, and a fine thing it would be if we could know in our vouth just what each one of us is designed to become, in the present chap- ter we are to learn that certain insects appear to have achieved this very thing. The termites are social insects; consequently in study- ing them, we shall be confronted with questions of con- duct. Therefore, it will be well at the outset to look somewhat into the subject of morality; not, be assured, to learn any of its irksome precepts, but to discover its biological significance. Right and wrong, some people think, are general ab- stractions that exist in the very nature of things. They
