We admire
spiders and kill only those with yellow stomachs, which are
"poison." ----
But up to the present we have found the ant the most
interestingly suggestive creature. He has developed and
understands stirpiculture--the improvement of the race by careful
breeding--which with us is as yet mere theory, and as we look
down at the ant, we look up to him because the strangely active
creature manages to do without sleep.
We human beings drowse through thirty years of our threescore and
ten, but the ant is awake and working all the time.
If the ant has managed to live without sleep, if he has acquired
the faculty of lifelong wakefulness, why should we not do as much
in time? We take it for granted that sleep is essential, as we
take everything else for granted. We used to take it for granted
that the earth was flat, but we have stopped that. Sleep was at
one time forced upon man and other animals.
The earth in its rollings turned away from the sun once in every
twenty-four hours. In the darkness of the beginning man said to
himself: "If I go walking around, I shall fall into a hole, so I
shall lie down and wait until the sun comes again."
He did as all the animals did before him for millions of years.
Since that time, man has conquered darkness.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114