ABSTRACT
The evolution of the social insects was selected as the topic of this course of lectures for several reasons: First, because lectures on an important group of insects seemed to me to be eminently appropriate for a laboratory founded by the illustrious Giard for the study of the evolution of organic beings. Second, I could think of no subject more interesting to the young biologists of a country which has produced a Réaumur, a Latreille, a Lepelletier de St. Fargeau, a Dufour, a Fabre, a Pérez, a Ferton, a Paul Marchal, and a Bouvier, not to mention a host of other brilliant hymenopterists. Third, having myself devoted more than a quarter of a century to the study of a single family of the social insects, with ample opportunities for travel, and as the recipient of much aid from enthusiastic entomologists in all parts of the world, it seemed to me that I might be able to suggest or emphasize some lines of thought worthy of your consideration. Fourth, it occurred to me that you could not be expected to be familiar with all the work that has been accomplished by my countrymen in entomology, and that by briefly presenting as much of it as it pertinent to my subject, I might be furthering to a slight degree that intellectual entente cordiale, which we are so desirous of maintaining between France and the United States. Fifth, I believe that the study of the social insects has, at the present time, a peculiar interest to the serious student of philosophy, sociology, and animal behaviour. Since we ourselves are social animals—I had almost said social insects—the philosophically inclined cannot fail to find food for thought in the strange analogies to human society, which continually reveal themselves among the wasps, bees, ants and termites, and the behaviourist will note that they suggest a bewildering array of fascinating facts and problems. Moreover, the very elaborate social behaviour of the insects, in that it is almost exclusively determined by the reflexes, tropisms, and the so-called instincts and not by intelligence, assumes great theoretical significance, when we contemplate the present anti-intellectualistic and relativistic tendencies and currents of European and American thought. We are beginning to see that our social as well as our individual behaviour is determined by a great background of irrational, subconscious, physiological processes. Any doubts in regard to the existence of this substratum will be dispelled by a perusal of Pareto’s “Treatise of General Sociology” (1917), the first volume of which is devoted to these “residues” which condition our social activities.
