MEN COMPARED WITH BEES.
(From a continuation of "the Indicator," by Leigh Hunt.)
It has been thought, that of all animated creation, the bees present the greatest moral likeness to man; not only because they labour and lay up stores, and live in communities, but because they have a form of government and a monarchy. Virgil immortalized them after a human fashion. A writer in the time of Elizabeth, probably out of compliment to the Virgin Queen, rendered them dramatis personae, and gave them a whole play to themselves. Above all, they have been held up to us, not only as a likeness, but as "a great moral lesson;" and this, not merely with regard to the duties of occupation, but the form of their polity. A monarchical government, it is said, is natural to man, because it is an instinct of nature: the very bees have it.
It may be worth while to inquire a moment into the value of this argument; not as affecting the right and title of our Sovereign Lord King William the Fourth (whom, with the greatest sincerity, we hope God will preserve!), but for its own sake, as well as for certain little collateral deductions. And, in the first place, we cannot but remark how unfairly the animal creation are treated, with reference to the purposes of moral example. We degrade or exalt them, as it suits the lesson we desire to inculcate. If we rebuke a drunkard or a sensualist, we think we can say nothing severer to him than to recommend him not to make "a beast of himself;" which is very unfair towards the beasts, who are no drunkards, and behave themselves as nature intended. A horse has no habit of drinking; he does not get a red face with it. The stag does not go reeling home to his wives. On the other hand, we are desired to be as faithful as a dog, as bold as a lion, as tender as a dove; as if the qualities denoted by these epithets were not to be found among ourselves. But above all, the bee is the argument. Is not the honey-bee, we are asked, a wise animal?—We grant it.—"Doth he not improve each passing hour?"—He is pretty busy, it must be owned—as much occupied at eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, as if his life depended on it:—Does he not lay up stores?—He does.—Is he not social? Does he not live in communities?—There can be no doubt of it.—Well, then, he has a monarchical government; and does not that clearly show that a monarchy is the instinct of nature? Does it prove, by an unerring rule, that the only form of government in request among the obeyers of instinct, is the only one naturally fitted for man?
In answering the spirit of this question, we shall not stop to inquire how far it is right as to the letter, or how many different forms of polity are to be found among other animals, such as the crows, the beavers, the monkeys; neither shall we examine how far instinct is superior to reason, nor why the example of man himself is to go for nothing. We will take for granted, that the bee is the wisest animal of all, and that it is a judicious thing to consider his manners and customs, with reference to their adoption by his inferiors, who keep him in hives. This naturally leads us to inquire, whether we could not frame all our systems of life after the same fashion. We are busy, like the bee; we are gregarious, like him; we make provision against a rainy day; we are fond of flowers and the country; we occasionally sting, like him; and we make a great noise about what we do. Now, if we resemble the bee in so many points, and his political instinct is so admirable, let us reflect what we ought to become in other respects, in order to attain to the full benefit of his example.
But we have not yet got half through the wonders, which are to modify human conduct by the example of this wise, industrious, and monarch-loving people. Marvellous changes must be effected, before we have any general pretension to resemble them, always excepting in the aristocratic particular. For instance, the aristocrats of the hive, however unmasculine in their ordinary mode of life, are the only males. The working-classes, like the sovereign, are all females! How are we to manage this? We must convert, by one sudden meta-morphosis, the whole body of our agricultural and manufacturing population into women! Mrs. Cobbett must displace her husband, and tell us all about Indian corn. There must be not a man in Nottingham, except the Duke of Newcastle; and he trembling lest the Queen should send for him. The tailors, bakers, carpenters, gardeners, must all be Mrs. Tailors and Mrs. Bakers. The very name of John Smith must go out. The Directory must be Amazonian. This commonalty of women must also be, at one and the same time, the operatives, the soldiers, the virgins, and the legislators of the country! They must make all we want, fight all our enemies, and even get up a Queen for us when necessary; for the sovereigns of the hive are often of singular origin, being manufactured! literally "made to order," and that too by dint of their eating! They are fed and stuffed into royalty! The receipt is, to take any ordinary female bee in its infancy, put it into a royal cradle or cell, and feed it with a certain kind of jelly; upon which its shape alters into that of sovereignty, and her Majesty issues forth, royal by the grace of stomach. This is no fable, as the reader may see on consulting any good history of bees. In general, several Queen-bees are made at a time, in case of accidents; but each, on emerging from her apartment, seeks to destroy the other, and one only remains living in one hive. The others depart at the head of colonies, like Dido.
To sum up then the conditions of human society were it to be re-modelled after the example of the bee, let us conclude with drawing a picture of the state of our beloved country, so modified. Imprimis, all our working people would be females, wearing swords, never marrying, and occasionally making queens. They would grapple with their work in a prodigious manner, and make a great noise. Secondly, our aristocracy would be all males, never working, never marrying, (except when sent for,) always eating or sleeping, and annually having their throats cut. The bee-massacre takes place in July; when accordingly all our nobility and gentry would be out of town, with a vengeance! The women would draw their swords, and hunt and stab them all about the West end, till Brompton and Bayswater would be choked with slain.
Thirdly, her Majesty the Queen would either succeed to a quiet throne, or, if manufactured, would have to eat a prodigious quantity of jelly in her infancy; and so alter growing into proper sovereign condition, would issue forth, and begin her reign either with killing her royal sisters, or leading forth a colony to America or New South Wales. She would then take to husband some noble lord for the space of one calendar hour, and dismissing him to his dullness, proceed to lie in of 12,000 little royal highnesses in the course of the eight following weeks, with others too numerous to mention; all which princely generation with little exception, would forthwith give up their title, and divide themselves into lords or working-women as it happened; and so the story would go round to the end of the chapter, bustling, working, and massacring:—and here ends the sage example of the Monarchy of the Bees.
We must observe nevertheless, before we conclude, that however ill and tragical the example of the bees may look for human imitation, we are not to suppose that the fact is anything like so melancholy to themselves. Perhaps it is no evil at all, or only so for the moment. The drones, it is true, seem to have no fancy for being massacred; but we have no reason to suppose, that they, or any of the rest concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are aware of the matter beforehand; and the same is to be said of the combats between the Queen-bees; they appear to be the result of an irresistible impulse, brought about, by the sudden pressure of a necessity. Bees appear to be very happy, during far the greater portion of their existence. A modern writer, of whom it is to be lamented that a certain want of refinement stopped short his perceptions, and degraded his philosophy from the finally expedient into what was fugitively so, has a passage on this point, as agreeable as what he is speaking of. "A bee among the flowers in spring," says Dr. Paley, "is one of the cheerfullest objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment, so busy and so pleased."—Abridged from the New Monthly Magazine.