The Illusions of Progress Georges Sorel

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The Illusions of Progress
 Georges Sorel

ce^S) The
Illusions of Progress
translated by
John and Charlotte Stanley
with a foreword by
Robert A. Nisbet
and an introduction by
John Stanley

University of California Press

Berkeley, Los Angeles, London
 University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
Copyright © ¡969 by The Regents of the University of California
First Paperback Edition 1912
ISBN: 0-520-02256-4
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 69-16511
Printed in the United States of America
 Foreword

Robert A. Nisbet

It is a pleasure to welcome this book into the English language, the

more so for the general excellence of the translation and for the valu-
able introduction that Professor Stanley has given to Sorel's work.
Not the most ardent of Sorel's admirers would ever have claimed
lucidity of thought or felicity of style for him. His notable conflicts
of life, purpose, and thought are only too well mirrored by the struc-
ture and manner of writing to be found in his books and articles. It is
high tribute to the skill of the translators that they have managed to
penetrate the sometimes tortuous recesses of the original and to give
us a work that seems to me eminently faithful to both the meaning
and the spirit of Les Illusions du progrès.
There is a kind of Gallic charm in the fact that a Frenchman
should have been the one to expose the intellectual roots of an idea
that is, for all its universality of appeal, French to the very core.
The modern idea of progress—the idea that mankind has progressed
in linear fashion in the past, is now progressing, and will continue
to progress indefinitely into the future—came into being in the
French Enlightenment. We find it stated with matchless assurance
early in the eighteenth century by the Abbé de Saint-Pierre and with
prophetic passion by the great Condorcet at the end of the century.
But, as Sorel makes superbly evident in the first section of The
Illusions of Progress, behind eighteenth-century French insistence
upon the inexorability of the progress of civilization lay an earlier
and crucial seventeenth-century French insistence upon the inex-
orability of the progress of knowledge-, knowledge alone. When
such luminaries of French rationalism as Pascal, Fontenelle, and
Perrault postulated the universality and inevitability of progressive
change in time, they had in mind, not the institutions, polities, and
v
vi Foreword

morals of mankind, but solely what Fontenelle himself referred to as

"the growth and development of human wisdom."
Moreover, as Sorel emphasizes almost gleefully, this insistence
upon the certainty of progress in human knowledge rested, in the
first instance at least, upon foundations no more substantial than the
belief by Fontenelle and Perrault that the literary and philosophical
works of their own day were superior in quality to those of Plato,
Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and others in the classical age. For
it was squarely within that elegant donnybrook of intellectuals
known to posterity as the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns
that the idea of necessary, linear progress had its first statement. As
Sorel shrewdly makes clear, there was a kind of circularity of reason-
ing involved among the rationalist defenders of the Moderns.
Writers of the seventeenth century could be declared superior to
writers of the ancient Greek and Roman world because of the nat-
ural tendency of knowledge to increase cumulatively in time, as does
the growth of the individual human mind. And the reality of this
postulated principle of progressive change could be proved by the
evident superiority of seventeenth-century philosophers and drama-
tists over their classical predecessors. W e can almost hear Sorel
chortle as we read the opening, brilliant section of The Illusions of
Progress. Parade all the "proofs" of progress you wish, he seems to
be saying, but the irrefutable fact remains: the modern idea of prog-
ress arose, not as a summary generalization of historical conditions,
but as a kind of rhetorical trick of some French intellectuals in the
seventeenth century seeking to demonstrate their and their contem-
poraries' intellectual superiority to Plato and Aristotle.
There is much more to the matter, of course, than this—much
more in Sorel's own book and much more in the larger perspective
of the history of the idea of progress. It is one of the distinctive
merits of Professor Stanley's exemplary introduction that he has
gone into this larger perspective and has, with fine scholarship,
shown us the deeper roots of the European idea of progress. It is not
only the scholarly literature on Sorel that has been enhanced by
Stanley's introductory essay, but the literature generally of the his-
tory of the idea of progress. He makes very clear indeed that a belief
in the progress of knowledge and culture, far from being a monop-
oly of the modern mind, had a good deal of philosophical under-
standing and also prestige among the classical thinkers of Greece and
Foreword vii

Rome. It would be impossible to praise too highly Stanley's treat-

ment of the roots of the idea of progress in Western thought; brief
as it must necessarily be, it casts illumination well beyond the scope
of its few pages.
Equally important is the longer and more detailed analysis that
Professor Stanley gives us of the relation of the idea of progress to
Sorel's own age in European thought. He shows us some of Sorel's
own ambiguities and misconceptions, especially with respect to the
concept of ideology. Sorel persisted in the belief that progress was
an ideology; an ideology, as we have seen, which arose first among
some seventeenth-century intellectuals, but which has depended
upon the bourgeoisie for its continuing popularity. His purpose in-
deed, Stanley tells us, was rather less to deal with the idea of progress
than it was to take on the bourgeoisie and to use his attack on the
idea, as he found it, as one more attack on the bourgeoisie. There is
also the fact that Sorel was himself far from denigrating the philos-
ophy of progress. It is, as Professor Stanley notes, one of the more
striking paradoxes of an exceedingly paradoxical mind that "a
thinker who sets out to debunk the modern idea of progress should
conclude the main sections of his two most important works with an
affirmation of the material progress of production."
The essential point—a point made clear in Stanley's own essay
on Sorel and in the final pages of Sorel's text—is that it is not so
much the idea of progress Sorel detests but, rather, the idea of prog-
ress. The distinction is, I believe, a vital one. We cannot entirely
place Sorel among that group of alienated nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century thinkers—Tocqueville, Burckhardt, Max Weber,
among others—whose distrust of the idea of progress was rooted in
their distrust of modernism, and especially modern materialism. For
Sorel there was progress to be seen in material production, and,
properly understood, progress could serve as an incitement to the
revolutionary action that Sorel adored. What Sorel detested about
the idea of progress—the idea that had made its way down from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that had implicated not merely
bourgeois philosophers but also socialists, including Marx himself
(see p. 193)—was its overtones of naturalness, normality, and neces-
sity. The author of Reflections on Violence, the philosopher of
myths, of elites, and of revolutionary acts, could hardly be expected,
as Professor Stanley concludes, to have accepted this aspect of the
viii Foreword

idea of progress; not even in the form in which he had found it in

Marx, there united, as we know, with a millennialist conviction of
the imminence of redemptive revolution.
The "illusion" of progress would appear to be for Sorel an illusion
only when the idea of progress is separated from the primacy of the
act. I think we are justified in adding the word "progress" to what
Professor Stanley says, in the final words of his introduction, about
virtue. For Sorel, progress, like virtue, "belongs only to those who
act." Nothing more, surely, needs to be said to indicate the profound
relevance of this book to ongoing movements of thought and action
in our own day.
 Translator's Introduction

Georges Sorel is known to English and American readers mainly

through his Reflections on Violence which, aside from one small
work,1 is until now the only one of his dozen books to have been
translated. It is not difficult to understand why this is so; the Re-
flections appeared at a time when there was intense interest in the
treatment of socialism, and the work's militant stand against ratio-
nalism conformed to the temper of the times. Today, the idea of
the creative role of violence in social movements is of great interest
to students of contemporary events. Even the title of Sorel's work
is a bit sensational.
As a consequence of this rather one-sided exposure, English-
language readers regard Sorel primarily as an exponent of anarcho-
syndicalism and the now famous (or infamous) myth of the general
strike. It is true that some of the narrow impressions have been
corrected in the course of several recent American works2 but, how-
1 1 refer to Irving Louis Horowitz' translation of La Décomposition du Marxisme

contained in the former's Radicalism and the Revolt Against Reason (New York:
Humanities Press, 1 9 6 1 ) . Reflections on Violence was published in 1950 by the Free
Press with an introduction by Edward Shils. It was translated from Réflexions sur
la violence in 1920 by T. E. Hulme with three appendixes by J. Roth. Hulme's
introduction is available in his Speculations (New York: Harvest Books, n.d.),
pp. 2 4 9 ff.
2 Most of the works on Sorel in English were written after 1950. The best of the

lot, Horowitz, op. cit., was published in 1961. See also Richard Humphrey, Georges
Sorel, Prophet Without Honor, A Study in Anti-Intellectualism (Cambridge: Har-
vard, 1 9 5 1 ) ; James Meisel, The Genesis of Georges Sorel (Ann Arbor, Michigan,
1 9 5 3 ) ; C. Michael Curtis, Three Against the Republic (Princeton University Press,
19J9) ; H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society (New York: Vintage ed., 1961 ) ,
chaps. 3, y; Scott Harrison Lyttle, "Georges Sorel: Apostle of Fanaticism," in
Modem France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics (Princeton, N.J.,
1 9 J 1 ) , pp. 264-290. See also the introductory essays by Shils to the Reflections.
Neal W o o d , "Some Reflections on Sorel. and Machiavelli," in Political Science

ix
X Translator's Introduction

ever competent, these treatments correct the misunderstandings or

superficial impressions of Sorel only with the greatest difficulty.
Even in France, many of Sorel's own lesser-known works are rela-
tively unread, and a considerable amount of oversimplified thinking
about him remains. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, recently dis-
missed Sorel's writings as "fascist utterances,"3 a statement that,
despite any particle of truth it may contain, is equivalent to con-
demning the Communist Manifesto as Bolshevik propaganda. Sorel's
writings, however offensive they may be to us, must be studied on
their own merits.
Interpreting Sorel is not an easy thing to do. He is a poor writer.
His organization is bad; one idea is thrown on top of another helter-
skelter, and Sorel thought it desirable to keep his writings difficult;
the reader has to work in order to understand him. But the transla-
tors believe that the presentation in English of another of his im-
portant works is an excellent way to facilitate study of this im-
portant thinker. This particular work, published originally in 1908
as Les Illusions du progrès, was selected for a number of reasons.
The idea of progress is of great interest to contemporary schol-
ars and it is partly for this reason that the Illusions of Progress along
with the Reflections is considered Sorel's most interesting and in-
fluential work.4 This is why it is the one work that should be read
by students and scholars of the history of the idea of progress, as
well as of Sorel's ideas.
Quarterly, LXXXIII, March 1968, pp. 76-91, is a correction of James Burnham,
The Machiavellians, Defenders of Freedom (Chicago: Regnery ed., 1963; first pub-
lished in 1943).
3
In his introduction to The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fannon (New
York, 1968), p. 14. More important is Sartre's admission that Fannon's writings
owe a great deal to Sorel's notion of the creative role of violence. I find it hard to
understand why Sartre finds Sorel more "fascist" than Fannon who emphasizes
hatred and race more than Sorel does.
4
Sorel had a profound influence on Camus. See The Rebel (New York: Vintage
ed., 1956), p. 194. Camus speaks only of the Illusions of Progress. See also John
Bowie, Politics and Opinion in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford,
1967 ed.), p. 403, and H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society, p. 162. Among
Sorel's other works are Contribution à F étude profane de la Bible ( 1889) ; Le Procès
de Socrate (1889); La Ruine du monde antique (1898); Introduction à l'économie
moderne (1903); Le Système historique de Renan (1906); La Décomposition du
Marxisme, Réflexions sur la Violence, and this work, Les Illusions du Progrès, ail
of which were published in 1908 at the height of Sorel's syndicalist period and are
the only works translated into English; La Révolution dreyfusienne (1909); Ma-
tériaux d'une théorie du prolétariat (1919); De l'utilité du pragmatisme (1921);
D'Aristote à Marx (1935).
Translator's Introduction xi

T h e work, however, is more than academic. Because of almost

two hundred years of expansion, continuous westward migration,
and an almost exclusively liberal rationalist tradition of political
thought, the idea of progress has a particular magic for Americans.
Rare indeed is the politician who does not invoke the great "prog-
ress" we have made and even rarer is the State of the Union address or
convention keynote speech that does not invoke progress as one of
the great purposes in American life. America in fact might be said
to be one of the few industrialized nations in the Occident whose
citizens are still ardent believers in the idea that the use of human
reason produces human betterment or that every new discovery
improves the lot of mankind: though the splitting of the atom may
end the human race, it will still provide abundant sources of cheap
electric power. 5
Far from American shores, Sorel wrote The Illusions of Progress
at a time in European history when there was not only a general
disenchantment with the ideas that led Gustave Eiffel to build the
tallest monument in Europe, but with the very concept of rationali-
ty itself. T h e new studies in psychology, plus a sense that fan-
tastic opulence was devoid of any taste or refinement, produced
an awareness of decadence and immorality. Reason and science
had not emancipated man; they had enslaved and debased him. In
Sorel's own case this awareness was confirmed by his observations
of the very forces that he at first regarded as being the saviors of
European civilization. T h e liberals and socialists had disillusioned
him by their disgraceful behavior during the Dreyfus affair, and it
was this disaffection that led to Sorel's opposition to the mainstream
of French radicalism. T o Sorel, the Dreyfusards were not really
interested in socialist reconstruction. He observed 6 that many of
them had motives of personal ambition in supporting the belea-
guered French officer. Sorel thought that the radicals, far from
being interested in reforming the order of things, merely wanted a
portion of that same order for themselves. T h e y wanted power, not
a more virtuous society; or at least they confused personal success
with the success of the social revolution, when in fact their achieve-
ments consisted primarily in strengthening the existing order.

5
For a good example of the modern American view of progress, see George
Gallup, The Miracle Ahead (New York: Harper, 1965).
6
Sorel, La Révolution dreyfusienne (1909).
xii Translator's Introduction

Consequently, Sorel spent a good portion of his intellectual career

waging a two-front war against the agents of European capitalism
and those of parliamentary socialism. Part of the difficulty, as Sorel
saw it, was that both capitalism and reform socialism shared the
same liberal rationalist assumptions that many of the European in-
tellectuals began to question at the turn of the century. A t the base
of these assumptions, according to Sorel, lay the idea of progress.
It is particularly interesting that someone with Sorel's background
should call the idea of progress into question. Born into a middle-class
French family in 1847, Sorel was educated at France's prestigious
Ecole Poly technique and later he went to work as a government
engineer. Engineering was not his first love, however, and he retired
early in 1892. It was only after his retirement that he did most of his
writing. T o whatever degree his personal experience led him to a
disenchantment with existing institutions, Sorel certainly did not
allow a genuine respect for scientific progress to obscure his skepti-
cism of an idea that went far beyond technical sophistication. Sorel
knew that the idea of progress arose and flourished in a technological
age, but he was aware that the idea spread far beyond the more
efficient construction of highways or the multiplication of more
efficient means of production. For he rightly thought that the idea
of progress was a kind of guiding ideology or myth (in the pejora-
tive sense) of the age—an ideology that had far-reaching political
consequences.

II

In order to explain Sorel's view of the idea of progress, we should

compare the idea of simple improvement or technological sophistica-
tion with the idea of progress in modern times. In order to do this
it might be fruitful to leave Sorel and to discuss briefly three works
that maintain that Sorel's understanding of the idea of progress—the
modern understanding—actually was held in antiquity. Following
this discussion, an analysis of what is meant b y "ideology" will be
attempted so that we can discuss how Sorel views the "ideology of
progress."
Translator's Introduction xiii

The late Professor Ludwig Edelstein contended that the Greeks

and Romans had an idea of progress which Edelstein defined with
Arthur O. Love joy as "a tendency inherent in nature or in man to
pass through a regular sequence of stages of development in past,
present, and future, the later stages being—with perhaps occasional
retardation—superior to the earlier.-"7
If this general definition of progress is what one might call "de-
velopmental improvement," it is easy to establish that some of
the ancients did believe in progress. It is certainly not true, as
one scholar has asserted, that the "ancients looked upon change with
dread because it was identified with calamity."8 T o take one note-
worthy example, Aristotle regarded the development of the polis as
change, and this change was regarded as natural and good; that is,
that the polis was both better and in one sense more "natural" than
earlier and more primitive forms of political organization. If this
kind of thinking is what Mr. Edelstein regards as progress, then the
Greeks most certainly believed in it.
But it is fair to say that the modern idea of progress is more than
the natural tendency toward developmental improvement (which
is the essence of the Lovejoy-Edelstein definition). For in Sorel's
time, and even today, the idea of progress was both a law of historical
development, a philosophy of history, and as a consequence also a
political philosophy. It combined a descriptive analysis of history
with a philosophical position that this development was right and
good, and this position was used, as we shall see, for political pur-
poses.
Now, the Lovejoy definition is vague enough to entail the pos-
sibility of the modern formulation being included in it. It is broad
7 Edelstein, The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hop-
kins, 1968), p. xi, cites the definition of Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas,
Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, A Documentary History of Primitivism
and Related Ideas (Baltimore, 1935), I, 6. For other works on the idea of progress,
see J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York: Dover ed., 1955) ; Charles Frankel,
The Faith of Reason: The Idea of Progress in the French Enlightenment (New
York, 1948); John Baillie, The Belief in Progress: A Réévaluation (London, 1953);
Frederick J. Teggart, Theory and Processes of History (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1962) and The Idea of Progress: A Collection of Readings (Berkeley, 1949) ; Ernest
Lee Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia (New York: Harper, 1964) ; R. V. Sampson,
Progress in the Age of Reason (London, 1956). Robert A. Nisbet, Social Change
and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969).
8 J. Salwyn Schapiro, Condorcet and the Rise of Liberalism (New York), p. 235.
xiv Translator's Introduction

enough to include historical, philosophical, and political analysis.

But Edelstein makes it quite clear at the beginning of the work that
"the definition of progress with which the historian begins cannot
be that of the philosopher." 9 Thus any example of recognizing piece-
meal improvement in any one field is taken by Edelstein to mean a
concept of progress. T o be sure, he implies that the criterion for im-
provement can be either piecemeal or total: " T h e criterion of im-
provement can be physical survival, the increase in material riches,
or even novelty itself, moral advance, intellectual improvement, or
greater happiness. Improvement can be looked for in all sectors of
life or in a few alone." 10 But it is quite clear from all of his examples
that piecemeal progress was the only kind of improvement that
the ancients regarded as possible; it virtually excluded the all-
encompassing total view of improvement characteristic of the mod-
ern view of progress.
In order to understand the modern viewpoint more completely,
it is profitable to examine briefly the view of another author who
asserts that the ancients went beyond a piecemeal view of progress
and approached the modern view. In The Open Society and Its
Enemies, Professor Karl Popper says that Aristotle's teleological
view constituted part of the roots of the Hegelian school of modern
progressivism. B y this Popper means that Aristotle's "progressivism"
was based on the Stagirite's notion o f ends or final causes. T h e cause
of anything is also the end toward which the movement aims, and
this aim is good. T h e essence of anything that develops is identical
with the purpose or end toward which it develops.11 Aristotle uses
biological analogies: the teleology of the boy is manhood; if we
switch and extend this biological analysis to the political arena, we
can say that the end toward which the village develops is the most
natural and the highest form of organization: the polis.
Popper says that the doctrine of ends or final causes leads to the
"historicist" idea of a historical fate or inescapable destiny which
can be used to justify all kinds of horrible institutions such as
slavery 12 because they are inevitable. It is true that this "historicist"
view that events are inevitable (and to a limited extent predictable)

9 Edelstein, The Idea of Progress in Antiquity, pp. xxix-xxx.

10 Ibid., p. xxix.
11 Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (New York: Harper paper

ed., 1962), II, 5.

12 Ibid., pp. 7-8.
Translator's Introduction xv

is essential to the modern view of progress. But it is doubtful that

Aristotle's doctrine of final causes was as deterministic as Popper
implies. Determinism is historical, and even Popper is constrained
to admit that Aristotle was not interested in historical trends and
made no direct contribution to historicism. 13 Determinism aside,
Aristotle did not see the growth of the city as being synonymous
with either moral or technological growth. Technology had reached
perfection in some areas and stood in need of further coordination
in others. 14 Furthermore, the growth of the political institutions of
the city did not necessarily entail a corresponding improvement in
morality. Thus Aristotle took care to draw the distinction between
the "good man" on the one hand and the "good citizen" on the other;
that is, that the good man and the good citizen were identical only
in the best city. 15 Theorists of progress, on the other hand, tend to
regard moral, technical, and political development as an interrelated
whole.
Indeed, the separation of morality from what we call "history"
today is one of the distinguishing characteristics of ancient times,
assuming that the ancients had a theory of history at all. It is left
to Eric A. Havelock in his The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics16
to put forth the view that the Sophistic idea that virtue can be taught
possessed the essential qualities of the modern identification of his-
tory and virtue. Havelock starts his thesis with the example of the
myth of Prometheus, in which fire was stolen from the hearth of
Zeus for the benefit of man. 17 But there is no evidence that this
theory is like the modern one. For one thing, as has been pointed out,

13 Ibid., p. 7.
14
Edelstein claims that the "perfection" envisaged by Aristotle is perfection in
all fields (p. 127), but earlier on he says that Aristotle recognizes that some arts
have reached a stage of excellence not to be surpassed, whereas the art of money-
making is limitless since acquisition knows no limits. But Edelstein seems to
ignore an important matter here. Aristotle distinguishes between sound and un-
sound forms of acquisition, i.e., acquisition based on selfish desire for gain and the
sound type of acquisition which is concerned with economics, the art of household
management, which is limited by the natural needs of the household. The impor-
tance of this distinction with regard to modern progress will become apparent.
Modern progress prefers limitless acquisition and indefinite improvement, whereas
Aristotle prefers natural limits. Also, the very notion of the kind of natural end
in Aristotle differs from the eschatological visions of Marxist progressives. (For
the modern view of limitless acquisition, see Locke's Second Treatise on Civil
Government, §§ 31,37, 50; cf. Politics, 1258.)
15 Politics, 1276b.
16
Yale University Press, New Haven, 1957, chap. 3.
17 Ibid., pp. j 2 f.
xvi Translator's Introduction

Prometheus' myth reveals no infinite progress, which is more char-

acteristic of modernity. Prometheus' punishment turns progress in-
to a great illusion, a false hope which is ultimately destroyed. More
important, the Sophistic viewpoint that virtue can be taught does
not itself prove progress in the modern sense. Havelock maintains
that Protagoreanism rationalizes an age of social progress,18 and it
does this in rather the same way that Pericles extols Athens in the
Funeral Oration. 19 But again, little indeed can be said about prog-
ress in antiquity beyond a vague sense of technical improvement;
it lacks a sense of history. As Leo Strauss persuasively argues, "Lib-
eralism implies a philosophy of history. 'History' does not mean in
this context a kind of inquiry or the outcome of an inquiry but
rather the object of an inquiry or a 'dimension of reality.' Since the
Greek word from which 'history' is derived does not have the latter
meaning, philological discipline would prevent one from ascribing
to any Greek thinker a philosophy of history at least before one
has laid the proper foundation for such an ascription." 20 As he points
out, there is no evidence from the Greek sources that the Sophists
or any other school possessed what we would call a philosophy of
history—a philosophy that is peculiar to the modern idea of progress.
And the Platonic dialogues, it may be assumed, would have gone
out of their way to record such views if they had occurred, since
progress is so easily attacked and is so antithetical to the Platonic
view of ultimate reality as unchanging.
Finally, even if it can be said that ancient historians themselves
had a philosophy of history, that philosophy if it was at all progres-
sive was so only in the larger context of a cyclical view of history
such as is found in Polybius. It remains to ask, however, just what the
modern philosophy of history is. In order to do this let us say what
it is not. W e can do this if we return to Professor Edelstein's book
to help us to enumerate the half dozen characteristics that clearly
differentiate modern progress from the notions of improvement or
"development" which occur in antiquity.
Instead of focusing on the Sophists, Edelstein turns his attention
to Seneca, who is singled out as giving a clearer and more compre-
18 Ibid., p. 176.
19 Peloponnesian War, II, 43.
20
Leo Strauss, "The Liberalism of Classical Political Philosophy," in The Re-
view of Metaphysics, XII (1959), p. 400.
Translator's Introduction xvii

hensive view of progress than any other ancient thinker and one that,
as a consequence, is closest to the view of progress held in the nine-
teenth century. In Seneca, the door to the future is opened. Mental
acumen and study will bring forth new and presently unknown dis-
coveries. Progress has not only led to the present but will be extended
into the future. According to Edelstein, this will be so not only in
the field of science but in all fields of human activity. 21
Edelstein asserts that by linking all branches of human activity
together, Seneca came closer to the modern theory of progress than
anyone else.22 N o w , it is true that for modern progressives, progress
is not, as we have repeatedly said, a piecemeal process but takes place
in all fields, intellectual, moral, political, technical; it extends to
liberty of thought as well as to the development of virtue; to science
as well as to the eradication of superstition and prejudice. In this way
Seneca embodies the first two principles of modern progress.
1. Progress today is multifaceted; each field of human endeavor is
looked upon as a member of a team of horses; each animal is held in
harness with the others and all advance in the same direction, down
the same road. T o Edelstein, though not as much to Bury, 23 Seneca
fulfilled this view.
2. Most of the thinkers of the past did not speculate on the future
as much as comment on the development of the present, but Seneca
looked to future development, which is definitely characteristic of
the modern view. 24
There are four other qualities that neither Seneca nor other an-
cients mentioned in their idea on development.
3. Despite his forward-looking perspective, Seneca and most of
the other ancients (including Lucretius and the atomists) were rec-

21
Edelstein, Progress in Antiquity, pp. 175-176.
22
Ibid., pp. 180, 175.
23
J . B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (Dover ed., 1955), PP- 1 J—15- For Bury the
value of natural science in Seneca was confined to a few chosen individuals and
not mankind at large. T h e latter constitutes the modern view.
2i
Ibid., p. 15. Cf. Edelstein, p. 170. Bury and Edelstein agree. (Seneca, Naturales
Quaestiones, VII, 2$, 4-5). Edelstein would have us believe that even Plato flirted
with indefinite future progress. Thus he says (p. 108) that in the Laws Plato asserts
that "not everything can have been debased at the end of the previous civilization."
But Edelstein concentrates here on the various arts, whereas the central import of
the passage cited is that morally speaking men were "manlier, simpler and by con-
sequence more self-controlled and more righteous generally" before the deluge
(Laws, 679b).
xviii Translator's Introduction

onciled to the annihilation of the world.25 Though annihilation was

viewed by them as virtually certain, in modern progressive thinking
annihilation is open to question. Optimism pervades modern progres-
sivism, not only about the future but about all things human.
4. Not only are modern progressives open to doubt on annihila-
tion, but as a consequence they are open to the idea of "indefinite
perfectibility," 26 an optimism that is shared by no known ancient.
5. Though Seneca views annihilation as an eventual certainty and
holds that all the great accomplishments of man will be abolished,
a new civilization will arise on the ashes of the old one. In this re-
spect, insofar as he has any historical theory at all, Seneca's view is
cyclical: civilizations rise and fall, and this viewpoint is almost uni-
versal in ancient thought. All advances in civilization are preludes
to a subsequent decline or ultimate end. What little independent
identity the idea of "history" had at all, it had in the form of a wheel
that, in one or another respect, returned to the same place in the
order of things. Modern progressivism is a different approach. The
latter depicts history as a line—occasionally broken to be sure-
destined to rise in an upward direction of indefinite perfectibility.
This linear rather than cyclical concept of history is perhaps the
most important single attribute of the contemporary view of prog-
ress.
6. In addition to all the above characteristics, modern progressiv-
ism has an aura of religious certainty about it. In ancient times history
meant the possibility of chaos or tragedy, and this was accompanied
by a feeling of resignation against the idea of Moira, roughly trans-
lated as "fate," which possessed a certain mysterious, unknown
quality.27 The modern view of progressive history, on the other
25
Naturales Quaestiones, III, 30, 1. Edelstein, p. 173. Bury, op. cit., p. 15, says
that Seneca's belief in the "corruption of the race is uncompromising."
26
T h e expression is Condorcet's in Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress
of the Human Mind, 10th epoch. The anonymous translation is from the London
edition of 1795, p. 346.
27
"Moira, it is true, was a moral power; but no one had to pretend that she was
exclusively benevolent, or that she had any respect for the parochial interests of
mankind. Further—and this is the most important point—she was not credited with
foresight, purpose, design; these belong to man and to the humanized Gods. Moira
is the blind, automatic force which leaves their subordinate purposes and wills free
play within their own legitimate spheres . . ." (F. M. Cornford, From Religion to
Philosophy [New York: Harper ed., 1957] pp. 20-21). Moira is antithetical to
progress because it leads to a sense of resignation about a fixed order in the universe
(Bury, p. 19). See also William Chase Greene, Moira: Fate, Good and Evil in Greek
Translator's Introduction xix

h a n d , sees f u t u r e p r o g r e s s as n o t o n l y inevitable b u t , to a limited

extent, p r e d i c t a b l e o n the basis of rational calculation of existing
data. It is this c h a r a c t e r of inevitability w h i c h c o n t r i b u t e s m o s t
s t r o n g l y to the m o d e m v i e w s of historical determinism a n d sees
social science as a s c i e n c e of p r e d i c t i o n . 2 8 E v e n t s had a l w a y s been
c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y s o m e f o r m of necessity, b u t o n l y m o d e r n i t y has
m a d e this n e c e s s i t y into a virtue.
T h e idea of progress had its origin in the seventeenth c e n t u r y and
m a t u r e d in the a g e of E n l i g h t e n m e n t . P e r h a p s n o better summaries
o f the idea of p r o g r e s s are f o u n d than in the c o n c l u d i n g p a r a g r a p h s
of the Outline of the Historical View of the Progress of the Human
Mind b y the a r c h e t y p a l p r o p o n e n t of the m o d e r n idea of progress,
the M a r q u i s de C o n d o r c e t . I n this w o r k , C o n d o r c e t puts f o r t h all
six of the c o n c e p t s that m a k e it a n e w idea in the eighteenth c e n t u r y
( t h o u g h n o t o r i g i n a t i n g w i t h C o n d o r c e t ) a n d an idea that c h a r a c -
terizes the f o l l o w i n g age. ( i ) P r o g r e s s o c c u r s in all fields; ( 2 ) is
p r o j e c t e d into the f u t u r e ; ( 3 ) r e j e c t s inevitable annihilation and the

Thought (New York: Harper ed. 1963). Recent scholarship has tried to show that
the idea of progress dates back to the millenarian and chiliastic thinkers of the
Middle Ages. Certainly Augustine and the church fathers, with their severely pes-
simistic view of earthly human nature, were not progressive thinkers. In placing
the good city in heaven, St. Augustine and the church fathers stand in marked
contrast to the millenarian sects who placed the good city on earth. Literature on
modern revolution makes frequent reference to the apocalyptic battle between
good and evil in chiliastic literature, the result being the establishment of the
heavenly city on earth. (See Ernest Lee Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia [New
York: Harper ed., 1964] and Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium [New
York: Harper ed., 1961], The view according to these writers is that the
medieval chiliasts, inheriting many of the concepts found in the Book of Revelation
and in Jewish apocalyptic ideas, regarded the world as moving toward a final battle
which would result in a N e w Jerusalem.) Yet even Tuveson admits that these sects
fell into disfavor for a thousand years after the death of Constantine (p. 14),
while Hanna Arendt notes that hysteria should not be confused with a theory of
history, that no revolution is made in the name of Christian teachings until the
modern age (On Revolution [New York: Viking, 1963] p. 19). Sorel notes the
number of Jewish members of Marxist movements; he notes, however, that they
are not members of these movements for ethnic reasons but because of their station
in life as independent intellectuals. Those who view Marx as "the last of the Hebrew
prophets" must contend with the secular and rationalist element which permeates
the modern view of history and stands in marked contrast with religious revela-
tion. (Cf. Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station [New York: Anchor ed., 1940],
chap. 5.)
28
Democritus could explain prerecognition of the future through a radically
materialist view of the universe, but this universe had no design (F. M. Cornford,
Principium Sapientiae [Harper ed., 1965], p. 130). Democritus had little influence
(Bury, p. 15).
XX Translator's Introduction

pessimism that goes with it; (4) renders civilization indefinitely

perfectible; ( 5 ) has a linear view of history; (6) regards the future
as having certain inevitable patterns which are calculable.
Condorcet sloughs off the prospect of an apocalyptic end of the
world as:
. . . impossible to pronounce on either side [and] which can only be
realized in an epoch when the human species will necessarily have a
degree of knowledge of which our shortsighted understanding can
scarcely form an idea . . . By supposing it actually to take place there
would result from it nothing alarming either to the happiness of the
human race or of its indefinite perfectibility if we consider that prior
to this period the progress of reason will have walked hand in hand with
that of the sciences; that the absurd prejudices of superstition will have
ceased to infuse into morality a harshness that corrupts and degrades
instead of purifying and exalting it.29

N o w , this statement does more than describe what w e would call

"development." It means more than the sophistication of the arts and
sciences. B y joining a vast number of human activities together and
asserting that moral improvement will result from this union, Con-
dorcet depicts the attitude of nearly perfect optimism without which
the modern theory of progress would not have arisen. Since progress
now means improvement in all fields, the history of all human activ-
ity—of mankind itself—is the history of progress. A t this point "his-
t o r y " and "progress" become virtually synonymous; so Condorcet
opens the future to a definite improvement in all fields, and this im-
provement is associated with knowledge or "enlightenment." This
ever-expanding enlightenment becomes part of the historical process
itself; further, this enlightenment not only should take place but,
because history is linear, it will take place. Progress is both a pattern
of development perceived through historical observation and a law

29
Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 10th epoch, London ed., 1795,
p. 346 (italics added). Charles Frankel, in defending Condorcet's view of progress,
asserts that the notion of indefinite perfectibility merely implies that man can never
assume that we have reached the limit of human hopes. " T h e principle of the in-
definite perfectibility of man is simply the denial that there are any absolutes
which the human mind can safely affirm. It is not a prediction about the future; it
is a statement of a policy . . . " ( T h e Case for Modern Man [Boston: Beacon, 1959],
p. 104). But Frankel ignores Condorcet's assertion that the human species will
necessarily have a clearer knowledge and that this in turn will result in releasing
man "from the dominion of chance." (See the final statement from Condorcet
below and n. 30.)
Translator's Introduction xxi

of human inevitability. It is this law of inevitable progress which

produces the most extraordinary optimism. Here is Condorcet's
concluding paragraph, written shortly before he was driven to
suicide by the T e r r o r :
How admirably calculated is this view of the human race, emanci-
pated from chains, released alike from the dominion of chance, as well
as from the enemies of progress, and advancing with firm and inevitable
step in the paths of truth, to console the philosopher lamenting his
errors, the flagrant acts of injustice, the crimes with which the earth is
still polluted! It is the contemplation of this prospect that rewards him
for all his effort to assist the progress of reason and the establishment of
liberty. He dares to regard these efforts as part of the eternal chain of the
destiny of mankind; and in this persuasion he finds true delight of virtue,
the pleasure of having performed a durable service which no vicissitude
will ever destroy. This sentiment is the asylum into which he retires,
and to which the memory of his prosecutors cannot follow him: he
unites himself in imagination with man restored to his rights, delivered
from oppression, and proceeding with rapid strides in the paths of
happiness; he forgets his own misfortunes while his thoughts are thus
employed; he lives no longer to adversity, calumny, and malice, but
becomes the associate of those wiser and more fortunate beings whose
enviable condition he so earnestly contributed to produce. 30

It is this attribution of an independent character and dignity to

history which converted it from a method of inquiry to an object
that had such revolutionary consequences. Despite Sorel's contention
that the Enlightenment ignored historical necessity, the idea of linear
development and advancement in all fields gave "history" a power
and coherence it had never attained before. B y coming together in
all fields progress meant the history of humanity; b y becoming
linear this advancement was made infinitely good. B y becoming in-
finitely good it strengthened history itself and thereby enabled "his-
t o r y " to become a source of political legitimacy. As long as history
was cyclical in nature it could not be used to legitimize a regime.
Cycles meant not only improvement but a subsequent decline and
fall. Therefore one could not use "history" to justify a regime if the
history of that regime would result in ultimate disaster. T h a t is w h y
the ancients found it impossible to justify their best regimes as his-
torical products. Plato's Republic as well as Aristotle's ideal state in

30Ibid., pp. 371-372 (italics added).

xxii Translator's Introduction

The Politics are not historical products; they are in fact specifically
anti-historical because history means imperfection and tragedy. The
etymology of the word "Utopia" as a "city of nowhere" under-
scores the character of the Republic whose discussion of "history"
ensues only before and after the Republic itself is discussed.31 It is
"reason" or at least "reasonableness" which justifies the best regime,
and this reason never becomes identified with "history." Condorcet
and the philosophies, by identifying history with the progress of en-
lightenment, make reason itself into a historical product.
As a consequence of the idea of progress, then, it was no longer
merely reason that served to justify regimes, but "history" itself. In
order more fully to understand the concept of legitimacy, we should
note that it is that quality or qualities which lend credibility to and
secure obedience for a government or regime and its institutions.
This concept depends of course on our criteria of legitimacy and
morality. Utilitarians, for example, view a regime as "legitimate" if
it strives for the maximum of social pleasures. Whatever the school
of thought, however, theories of political legitimacy are usually ac-
companied by what one writer has called the quality of "benefi-
cence"; 32 of producing certain benefits which other regimes do not
do as well, whether it be order, security, pleasures, reason, or what
not. But the quality of beneficence could not be attributed to "his-
tory" until "history" became an object as well as a method of study,
and until this object became devoid of any concept of ultimate de-
cline and fall—that is, of a cyclical nature. When this cyclical aspect
of history was removed, and when modernity viewed history as a
universally progressive phenomenon, "history" as such assumed the
character of an independent object and became possessed of a quality
of infinite beneficence for the first time. It was at this point that the

31
B y "history" is meant here the affairs of men placed in a sequential order, not
the modern view. Cf. Republic, 3676-374? in which the rise of the luxurious state is
described; 5434-575. Despite Sorel's oft-repeated contention that the men of the
Enlightenment were "ahistorical" and had no appreciation of necessity, it is prob-
ably true in this case that it took an ahistorical man to produce a historicist. If
Condorcet was not historicist, the failure of the French Revolution was the event
which sparked a reliance on historical determinism as a thing far greater than the
wills of individual men but whose apparent thoughts worked to a higher unity
and realization. It was this resolution of opposites which led Marx as well as Hegel
to the camp of the progressives.
32
Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power (Boston: Beacon), p. 25. The author sepa-
rates beneficence from force and legitimacy as the common elements in stable
power. But he says they cannot be isolated except analytically.
Translator's Introduction xxiii

idea of history came increasingly to dominate political discourse: if a

government is an actual entity, it is viewed as a historical event and as
such the "product" of historical development; if "history" is benef-
icent, then so is the regime. As a product of "history," it becomes
the best possible regime, while the best regime (as opposed to the
best possible regime) becomes the end of the historical process. But
the difference between the best possible regime and the best regime
(e.g., Plato's Cretan city of the Laws versus the Republic) is ob-
scured, with the virtual disappearance of the latter. The best regime,
in ancient times, assumed the qualities of definition. Plato ad-
mitted that the Republic might never be attained in the world of
becoming (i.e., history), which is why the most brilliant of the
theorists on progress, Karl Marx, could proclaim himself an anti-
Utopian.33 As long as a regime could distinguish between the good
man and the good citizen, as long as history was viewed at most as a
story, a story of disaster and tragedy, a certain plurality in human
affairs was axiomatic. History meant chaos and this meant a com-
plicated clash of motives and events. But when the idea of "history"
became linear and was coupled with indefinite improvement, tragedy
was replaced by a series of minor setbacks on the path to perfection.
Heroes were replaced by "reason" or "world historical individu-
als"34 who became great, not through great deeds but by their
ability to grasp historical necessity. Fate, which had the character
of great mystery, was replaced by "history," a history in which
everything is either explained or explainable. Tragedy could be ex-
plained as a reasonable (necessary) part of the greater plan of his-
torical fulfillment.35
In the world in which tragedy becomes rational and in which
everything can be explained, truth assumes a broad unitary charac-
33 Communist Manifesto, III, 3: "The significance of Critical Utopian Socialism

and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion

as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic
standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical
value and all theoretical justification. Therefore, although the originators of these
systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case,
formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their
masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletar-
iat." For a defense of Utopianism, see Andrew Hacker, "In Defense of Utopia,"
in Ethics, 65 (Jan. 1955), pp. 135—138.
34
The expression is Hegel's in The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New
York: Dover, 19¡6), p. 29.
35
There are numerous critiques of what is known as historicism. See Karl Popper,
The Poverty of Historicism (New York: Harper ed., 1964). For a natural law
XXIV Translator's Introduction

ter. By becoming historical it becomes part of a broad continuum

which obscures the difference between what is and what ought
to be, by making both part of the same line extending between
past and future. If perfection is possible in this world, events can
attain the same unity which had heretofore been characteristic only
of Utopias that had in ancient times been explicitly ahistorical. Now,
instead of Plato's unitary city, history itself provides man with a
sense of oneness with other men and with events themselves.

Ill

The unitary advance which the linear notion of progress was to

make so important in the century following the French Revolution
was to extend far beyond society and morality and reach into the
province of thought itself. If history was viewed as an extension
of all fields of human activity, not the least of which was the
"progress of the human mind" itself, the exalted place that "en-
lightenment" originally had in Condorcet's theory of progress was
to give way to the notion that knowledge itself is just another factor
in historical progress. For what is "thought" but another human
activity that can be "explained" historically? At this point philos-
ophy, which had always meant love of wisdom, began to be simply
another pattern of human behavior. The use of prudence which
was the way political philosophy confronted corporeal reality gave
way to a science of historical prediction; and political philosophy,
which had heretofore been a method of inquiry about why we
should obey, was transformed into a study of the historical origins
and background of ideas. This development is credited to Condor-
cet's near-contemporary Destutt de Tracy, who in his Eléments
d'Idéologie (1801—1815) calls for a "science of ideas."
The importance of this development should be noted primarily

analysis, see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), Chap. I. For
an existentialist view, see Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (New
York: Vintage ed., 1957), Pt. III. See also Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of His-
tory (New Haven: Yale, 1953); Sir Isaiah Berlin, Historical Inevitability (London
and New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).
Translator's Introduction XXV

for those who do not understand the fundamental character of the

change of thinking which converted philosophy into what is called
"ideology": the significance of explaining all thought in terms of its
historical background had the effect of minimizing the importance
of philosophy altogether; that is, of denuding it of any intrinsic value
and replacing it with explanations of its place in "history." Thus
the liberal idea of, say, limited government was not discussed on the
basis of the merits of limiting sovereignty, but was viewed instead as
a rationalization or justification of certain social interests—in this case
of a dominant capitalist class preventing factory legislation, etc.
This tendency is found most prominently in the thought of Karl
Marx, who asserted even before he wrote the Communist Manifesto
that ideas were the products of material relations.36
It is easy to see, under these circumstances, that the idea of history
itself becomes the only viable basis of political legitimacy. If, as in
the writings of Marx, all ideas except one's own are placed on the
same plane as social classes or conventions, they become as ephemeral
as any social phenomena; they pass into nonexistence, just as so much
social data changes with those historical preconditions that are
proclaimed to have brought them into being. Thus an idea is "true"
only if it is close to actual "historical conditions." If it is not proxi-
mate to the historical conditions, it is "false consciousness." For this
reason Marx was quite consistent in maintaining the truth of capital-
ism as compared to feudalism insofar as the former represented a
more "advanced" stage of historical development; but that the idea
of capitalism in a sense became "false consciousness" when con-
fronted with socialism, while the latter would become false after
giving way to communism. Under this approach to ideas, thought
loses any permanent quality which distinguishes it from society
itself.37
36
See The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 1947). "The
production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven
with the material activity and the material intercourse of men . . . the direct efflux
of their material behavior" (pp. 13-14; italics added). The importance of the word
"direct" is not to be underestimated.
37
"We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life processes
we demonstrate the development of ideological reflexes and echoes of this life
process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates
of their material life process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to ma-
terial premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their
corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of
xxvi Translator's Introduction

But the notion of ideology, particularly that which is found in

Marxism, is further complicated b y the appreciation of competing
ideas within the same historical periods. Thus capitalism is the ideol-
o g y of the dominant class, whereas the proletariat whose ideology
should be socialism manifests "false consciousness" if it accepts
the capitalist argument. Even the temporary efficacy of ideas is
weakened when the progress of history is not only used to explain
ideas, but is turned against them. For if ideas are only excuses for
interests and conscious rationalizations for exploitation, then the
idea is not only made temporary but is thrust aside; the idea becomes
a mask to be ripped off, if the true face of the proponents is to be
discovered. 38 Ideas are changed from being temporary explanations
to false consciousness and from false consciousness into unconscious
falsehood. 39
T h e profound misunderstanding that has arisen with the contem-
porary use of the term "ideology" should be viewed in this context.

independence. T h e y have no history, no development . . ." (ibid., p. 14). B y "no

longer" Marx does not mean that they did once possess independence, but rather
that in contradistinction to German idealist philosophy, ideas in his materialist
v i e w "no longer" retain independence. In short "Life is not determined by con-
sciousness but consciousness by life" (p. 1 5 ) .
3 8 Hanna A r e n d t says that even during the French Revolution, the elevation of

hypocrisy f r o m a minor sin to a major crime had the effect of doing away with
the classical distinction of one's persona or legal mask, a word originally developed
f r o m theatrical masks into the concept of a "legal personality" or a "right and duty
bearing person." " W i t h o u t his persona there would be an individual without rights
and duties." See On Revolution ( N e w Y o r k : Viking, 196J ed.), pp. 102—103.
3 9 G e o r g e Lichtheim says that Marx's vision was that in a rational order, thought

determines action. " M e n will be free w h e n they are able to produce their o w n
circumstances. Historical materialism is valid only until it has brought about its
dialectical negation. . . ." T h e "mature consciousness which comprehends the
necessity of 'prehistory' will not be an ideological one" ( T h e Concept of Ideology
and Other Essays [ N e w Y o r k : Vintage, 1967], p. 2 1 ) . A s a consequence Marx be-
lieved that there were some permanent truths which rise above changing social
circumstances. " T h e concept of ideology illumines the historical circumstance that
men are not in possession of the true consciousness w h i c h — i f they had it—would
enable them to understand the totality of the world and their o w n place in it"
(ibid., p. 22). It is true that Marx regarded his o w n ideas as having some measure
of transcendent truth; but Lichtheim admits that Marx refused to recognize the
dilemma of asserting all thought as determined on the one hand and some ideas
rising above being determined on the other. Lichtheim cites Engels' letter to
Mehring of July 14, 1893, in w h i c h the former says, "Ideology is a process accom-
plished b y the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness.
T h e real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; else it simply
would not be an ideological process" (Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence
Translator's Introduction XXVtt

A n " i d e o l o g y " is not simply a political idea such as "capitalism" or

"socialism," but is rather a justification or rationalization f o r a par-
ticular g r o u p in society. In this respect M a r x could not have v i e w e d
an ideology as merely a political idea. Rather it is a product of his-
t o r y ; as such, o n l y the idea (socialism) w h i c h is closest to historical
reality is legitimate, and since history progresses, each succeeding
idea is more legitimate. U n d e r these conditions, only the progress of
history itself can become the ultimate legitimizing idea and the study
of ideas becomes historical. B u t if ideas are studied historically, then
the study of ideology is really not a study but a method. H e r e then
ideology as such must be differentiated f r o m the ideological method
w h i c h is the actual process of unmasking or explaining the " r e a l " or
historical basis of political philosophy and all other thought. 4 0

[Moscow, 1953], p. J41; Lichtheim, p. i j ) . Thus Marx, according to Lichtheim,

held that the difference between "objective" and "ideological" thinking is in the
ability "to comprehend the particular determinations which condition each suc-
cessive phase of human activity" (Lichtheim, p. 20). But the young Marx would
not have gone along with this Engels formulation. (See nn. 36 and 37 above.) Lich-
theim recognizes Marx's own ambiguity on the question of ideology, i.e., that he
retained enough Hegelian idealism and Enlightenment rationalism to take ideas
seriously. The consequence of the theory of ideology as being the end of all in-
dependent thought was a possibility never squarely faced by Marx; even Engels
says that we will be subject to necessity even when we do understand its laws,
and it is reasonable to include thought in this process of necessity. "Freedom does
not consist in the dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge
of those laws, and in the possibility of making them work towards definite ends.
This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which
govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves—two classes of laws
which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality.
Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions
with knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man's judgment is in relation
to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this
judgment will be determined" (Anti-During: Herr Eugen Diiring's Revolution in
Science [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959], p. 157; italics are
Engels'). This was written prior to Marx's death. (See the following note.)
40
For the logical conclusion of Marx's historical materialist analysis of ideas,
see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. Mannheim faces the consequences of
Marx's theory of ideas, which sees its culmination in what Mannheim calls the
sociology of knowledge. Like Marx, Mannheim sees the perfected ideological
method—the sociology of knowledge—as gradually transforming "the Utopian
element" in man's thinking into thought which is more and more coterminous with
historical reality and thus losing its function of opposition. "But the complete elimi-
nation of reality-transcending elements from our world would lead us to a 'matter
of factness' which ultimately would lead to the decay of the human will. . . . The
disappearance of Utopia brings about a static state of affairs in which man himself
becomes no more than a mere thing. We would be faced then with the greatest
xxviii Translator's Introduction

Since the imprimatur of historical progress is the one legitimizing

concept that the proponents of the concept of ideology can accept
(at least if they are consistent), it was only a matter of time before
the idea of progress itself would be brought under the microscope
of the ideological method. The rather interesting quality of Georges
Sorel's The Illusions of Progress is that the ideological method, a
consequence of the idea of progress, is itself used against the idea of
progress and with it the whole idea of historical inevitability.
As Sorel pictures it, however, progress is an ideology which is
not part of Marxism, but a bourgeois creation. His purpose in writing
the book is to oppose the bourgeoisie by demolishing "this super-
structure of conventional lies and to destroy the prestige still ac-
corded to the 'metaphysics' of the men who vulgarize the vulgariza-
tion of the eighteenth century." 41
Methodologically, the concept of ideology has many difficulties.
Not the least of these is determining the exact relationship that ideas
have to the material conditions out of which they (allegedly) arise.
For example, do these conditions "cause" ideas to arise purely and
simply; or do ideas arise independently and then become taken over
and "used" by particular interests or institutions?42 Sorel seems to
opt for the latter explanation. This is an important part of Sorel's
thinking, for it allows him to attribute to ideas themselves a causative
influence—an independence—which might raise eyebrows in more
orthodox Marxian circles. Thus Sorel is able to say that the concept

paradox imaginable, namely, that man, who has achieved the highest degree of
rational mastery of existence, left without any ideals, becomes a mere creature
of impulses. Thus, after a long, tortuous, but heroic, development, just at the
highest stage of awareness, when history is ceasing to be blind fate, and is becoming
more and more man's own creation, with the relinquishment of Utopias, man
would lose his will to shape history and therewith his ability to understand it"
(Ideology and Utopia, An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, trans.
Louis Wirth and Edward Shils [New York: Harvest Books ed., n.d., originally
published in 1936], p. 262).
41
See below, p. 152.
42
For an elaboration of the problems which the ideological method poses, and
the ramifications which this has for a science of knowledge, see Robert Merton,
Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957 ed.), pp. 460 f.
Translator's Introduction xxix

of progress could be traced back, not to material conditions but to a

purely literary conflict between ancient and modern writers; or that
the Voltairian spirit also disappeared as the result of a literary
revolution and not on the day that the bourgeoisie somehow "de-
cided" that its interests necessitated a return to the church. The
latter explanation Sorel rejects as an "ideological and highly super-
ficial explanation."43
Furthermore, Sorel maintains that the creator of an idea is as free
as an artist working with new materials, but that ideas, once formed,
establish links with other current ideas and thereby become part of
the predominant doctrine of a given period. This period will find in
that doctrine certain meanings and interpretations that may be quite
different from the initial intention of the author. Similarly, other
classes in other periods may take yet another meaning from the idea.
Primary importance is granted to what others see as only secondary;
where some see only literature, others see philosophy. Thus, the same
idea is upheld in radically varying ways according to the social
position (class) of the people upholding it. This is as true for the
doctrine of progress (which changes form as it is adopted by dif-
ferent periods: it becomes more deterministic in the nineteenth cen-
tury) as it is for Marxism, which is looked upon by parliamentary
socialists with far less seriousness than by the founders of the
doctrine.
There is a definite importance to Sorel's attributing a certain
independence to moral ideas. Sorel was a moralist; this is the single
most outstanding trait of the man, and no explication of his ideas is
possible until it is emphasized that the fundamental and underlying
principle behind most of his writing was a genuine despair at the
moral decadence of modern Europe. Moral rebirth is possible only
under conditions that lie outside the idea of progress and the social
institutions that foster the idea. Thus it is imperative that Sorel
not regard morality as simply the product of historical forces but
rather grant it some autonomy. He maintains, therefore, that the
lowering of the moral level of Europe was not due to the persecu-
tion of the Jansenists but that it was the other way around.44
Sorel's use of the Marxian theory of ideology recalls to mind his

43
See below, p. 9.
44
See below, p. 10.
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of Insects get their living off this industrious creature. Another bee,
Stelis nasuta, breaks open the cells after they have been completely
closed and places its own eggs in them, and then again closes the
cells with mortar. The larvae of this Stelis develop more rapidly than
do those of the Chalicodoma, so that the result of this shameless
proceeding is that the young one of the legitimate proprietor—as we
human beings think it—is starved to death, or is possibly eaten up as
a dessert by the Stelis larvae, after they have appropriated all the
pudding.

Another bee, Dioxys cincta, is even more audacious; it flies about in

a careless manner among the Chalicodoma at their work, and they
do not seem to object to its presence unless it interferes with them in
too unmannerly a fashion, when they brush it aside. The Dioxys,
when the proprietor leaves the cell, will enter it and taste the
contents; after having taken a few mouthfuls the impudent creature
then deposits an egg in the cell, and, it is pretty certain, places it at
or near the bottom of the mass of pollen, so that it is not
conspicuously evident to the Chalicodoma when the bee again
returns to add to or complete the stock of provisions. Afterwards the
constructor deposits its own egg in the cell and closes it. The final
result is much the same as in the case of the Stelis, that is to say,
the Chalicodoma has provided food for an usurper; but it appears
probable that the consummation is reached in a somewhat different
manner, namely, by the Dioxys larva eating the egg of the
Chalicodoma, instead of slaughtering the larva. Two of the
Hymenoptera Parasitica are very destructive to the Chalicodoma,
viz. Leucospis gigas and Monodontomerus nitidus; the habits of
which we have already discussed (vol. v. p. 543) under Chalcididae.
Lampert has given a list of the Insects attacking the mason-bee or
found in its nests; altogether it would appear that about sixteen
species have been recognised, most of which destroy the bee larva,
though some possibly destroy the bee's destroyers, and two or three
perhaps merely devour dead examples of the bee, or take the food
from cells, the inhabitants of which have been destroyed by some
untoward event. This author thinks that one half of the bees' progeny
are made away with by these destroyers, while Fabre places the
destruction in the South of France at a still higher ratio, telling us that
in one nest of nine cells, the inhabitants of three were destroyed by
the Dipterous Insect, Anthrax trifasciata, of two by Leucospis, of two
by Stelis, and of one by the smaller Chalcid; there being thus only a
single example of the bee that had not succumbed to one or other of
the enemies. He has sometimes examined a large number of nests
without finding a single one that had not been attacked by one or
other of the parasites, and more often than not several of the
marauders had attacked the nest.

It is said by Lampert and others that there is a passage in Pliny

relating to one of the mason-bees, that the Roman author had
noticed in the act of carrying off stones to build into its nest; being
unacquainted with the special habits of the bee, he seems to have
supposed that the insect was carrying the stone as ballast to keep
itself from being blown away.

Fig. 20—Anthidium manicatum, Carder-bee. A, Male; B, female.

The bees of the genus Anthidium are known to possess the habit of
making nests of wool or cotton, that they obtain from plants growing
at hand. We have one species of this genus of bees in Britain; it
sometimes may be seen at work in the grounds of our Museum at
Cambridge: it is referred to by Gilbert White, who says of it, in his
History of Selborne: "There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the
garden-campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it turns
to some purpose in the business of nidification. It is very pleasant to
see with what address it strips off the pubes, running from the top to
the bottom of a branch, and shaving it bare with the dexterity of a
hoop-shaver. When it has got a bundle, almost as large as itself, it
flies away, holding it secure between its chin and its fore legs." The
species of this genus are remarkable as forming a conspicuous
exception to the rule that in bees the female is larger than the male.
The species of Anthidium do not form burrows for themselves, but
either take advantage of suitable cavities formed by other Insects in
wood, or take possession of deserted nests of other bees or even
empty snail-shells. The workers in cotton, of which our British
species A. manicatum is one, line the selected receptacle with a
beautiful network of cotton or wool, and inside this place a finer layer
of the material, to which is added some sort of cement that prevents
the honied mass stored by the bees in this receptacle from passing
out of it. A. diadema, one of the species that form nests in hollow
stems, has been specially observed by Fabre; it will take the cotton
for its work from any suitable plant growing near its nest, and does
not confine itself to any particular natural order of plants, or even to
those that are indigenous to the South of France. When it has
brought a ball of cotton to the nest, the bee spreads out and
arranges the material with its front legs and mandibles, and presses
it down with its forehead on to the cotton previously deposited; in this
way a tube of cotton is constructed inside the reed; when withdrawn,
the tube proved to be composed of about ten distinct cells arranged
in linear fashion, and connected firmly together by means of the
outer layer of cotton; the transverse divisions between the chambers
are also formed of cotton, and each chamber is stored with a mixture
of honey and pollen. The series of chambers does not extend quite
to the end of the reed, and in the unoccupied space the Insect
accumulates small stones, little pieces of earth, fragments of wood
or other similar small objects, so as to form a sort of barricade in the
vestibule, and then closes the tube by a barrier of coarser cotton
taken frequently from some other plant, the mullein by preference.
This barricade would appear to be an ingenious attempt to keep out
parasites, but if so, it is a failure, at any rate as against Leucospis,
which insinuates its eggs through the sides, and frequently destroys
to the last one the inhabitants of the fortress. Fabre states that these
Anthidium, as well as Megachile, will continue to construct cells
when they have no eggs to place in them; in such a case it would
appear from his remarks that the cells are made in due form and the
extremity of the reed closed, but no provisions are stored in the
chambers.

The larva of the Anthidium forms a most singular cocoon. We have

already noticed the difficulty that arises, in the case of these
Hymenopterous larvae shut up in small chambers, as to the disposal
of the matters resulting from the incomplete assimilation of the
aliment ingested. To allow the once-used food to mingle with that still
remaining unconsumed would be not only disagreeable but possibly
fatal to the life of the larva. Hence some species retain the whole of
the excrement until the food is entirely consumed, it being, according
to Adlerz, stored in a special pouch at the end of the stomach; other
Hymenoptera, amongst which we may mention the species of
Osmia, place the excreta in a vacant space. The Anthidium adopts,
however, a most remarkable system: about the middle of its larval
life it commences the expulsion of "frass" in the shape of small
pellets, which it fastens together with silk, as they are voided, and
suspends round the walls of the chamber. This curious arrangement
not only results in keeping the embarrassing material from contact
with the food and with the larva itself, but serves, when the growth of
the latter is accomplished, as the outline or foundations of the
cocoon in which the metamorphosis is completed. This cocoon is of
a very elaborate character; it has, so says Fabre, a beautiful
appearance, and is provided with a very peculiar structure in the
form of a small conical protuberance at one extremity pierced by a
canal. This canal is formed with great care by the larva, which from
time to time places its head in the orifice in process of construction,
and stretches the calibre by opening the mandibles. The object of
this peculiarity in the fabrication of the elaborate cocoon is not clear,
but Fabre inclines to the opinion that it is for respiratory purposes.

Other species of this genus use resin in place of cotton as their

working material. Among these are Anthidium septemdentatum and
A. bellicosum. The former species chooses an old snail-shell as its
nidus, and constructs in it near the top a barrier of resin, so as to
shut off the part where the whorl is too small; then beneath the
shelter of this barrier it accumulates a store of honey-pollen, deposits
an egg, and completes the cell by another transverse barrier of resin;
two such cells are usually constructed in one snail-shell, and below
them is placed a barricade of small miscellaneous articles, similar to
what we have described in speaking of the cotton-working species of
the genus. This bee completes its metamorphosis, and is ready to
leave the cell in early spring. Its congener, A. bellicosum, has the
same habits, with the exception that it works later in the year, and is
thus exposed to a great danger, that very frequently proves fatal to it.
This bee does not completely occupy the snail-shell with its cells, but
leaves the lower and larger portion of the shell vacant. Now, there is
another bee, a species of Osmia, that is also fond of snail-shells as a
nesting-place, and that affects the same localities as the A.
septemdentatum; very often the Osmia selects for its nest the vacant
part of a shell, the other part of which is occupied by the Anthidium;
the result of this is that when the metamorphoses are completed, the
latter bee is unable to effect its escape, and thus perishes in the cell.
Fabre further states with regard to these interesting bees, that no
structural differences of the feet or mandibles can be detected
between the workers in cotton and the workers in resin; and he also
says that in the case where two cells are constructed in one snail-
shell, a male individual is produced from the cell of the greater
capacity, and a female from the other.

Osmia is one of the most important of the genera of bees found in

Europe, and is remarkable for the diversity of instinct displayed in the
formation of the nests of the various species. As a rule they avail
themselves for nidification of hollow places already existing;
choosing excavations in wood, in the mortar of walls, and even in
sandbanks; in several cases the same species is found to be able to
adapt itself to more than one kind of these very different substances.
This variety of habit will render it impossible for us to do justice to
this interesting genus within the space at our disposal, and we must
content ourselves with a consideration of one or two of the more
instructive of the traits of Osmia life. O. tridentata forms its nest in
the stems of brambles, of which it excavates the pith; its mode of
working and some other details of its life have been well depicted by
Fabre. The Insect having selected a suitable bramble-stalk with a cut
extremity, forms a cylindrical burrow in the pith thereof, extending the
tunnel as far as will be required to allow the construction of ten or
more cells placed one after the other in the axis of the cylinder; the
bee does not at first clear out quite all the pith, but merely forms a
tunnel through it, and then commences the construction of the first
cell, which is placed at the end of the tunnel that is most remote from
the entrance. This cavity is to be of oval form, and the Insect
therefore cuts away more of the pith so as to make an oval space,
but somewhat truncate, as it were, at each end, the plane of
truncation at the proximal extremity being of course an orifice.

Fig. 21.—Osmia tricornis, ♀. Algeria.

The first cell thus made is stored with pollen and honey, and an egg
is deposited. Then a barrier has to be constructed to close this
chamber; the material used for the barrier is the pith of the stem, and
the Insect cuts the material required for the purpose from the walls of
the second chamber; the excavation of the second chamber is, in
fact, made to furnish the material for closing up the first cell. In this
way a chain of cells is constructed, their number being sometimes as
many as fifteen. The mode in which the bees, when the
transformations of the larvae and pupae have been completed,
escape from the chain of cells, has been the subject of much
discussion, and errors have arisen from inference being allowed to
take the place of observation. Thus Dufour, who noted this same
mode of construction and arrangement in another Hymenopteron
(Odynerus nidulator), perceived that there was only one orifice of
exit, and also that the Insect that was placed at the greatest distance
from this was the one that, being the oldest of the series, might be
expected to be the first ready to emerge; and as the other cocoons
would necessarily be in the way of its getting out, he concluded that
the egg that was last laid produced the first Insect ready for
emergence. Fabre tested this by some ingenious experiments, and
found that this was not the case, but that the Insects became ready
to leave their place of imprisonment without any reference to the
order in which the eggs were laid, and he further noticed some very
curious facts with reference to the mode of emergence of Osmia
tridentata. Each Insect, when it desires to leave the bramble stem,
tears open the cocoon in which it is enclosed, and also bites through
the barrier placed by the mother between it and the Insect that is
next it, and that separates it from the orifice of exit. Of course, if it
happen to be the outside one of the series it can then escape at
once; but if it should be one farther down in the Indian file it will not
touch the cocoon beyond, but waits patiently, possibly for days; if it
then still find itself confined it endeavours to escape by squeezing
past the cocoon that intervenes between it and liberty, and by biting
away the material at the sides so as to enlarge the passage; it may
succeed in doing this, and so get out, but if it fail to make a side
passage it will not touch the cocoons that are in its way. In the
ordinary course of events, supposing all to go well with the family, all
the cocoons produce their inmates in a state for emergence within a
week or two, and so all get out. Frequently, however, the emergence
is prevented by something having gone wrong with one of the outer
Insects, in which case all beyond it perish unless they are strong
enough to bite a hole through the sides of the bramble-stem. Thus it
appears that whether a particular Osmia shall be able to emerge or
not depends on two things—(1) whether all goes well with all the
other Insects between it and the orifice, and (2) whether the Insect
can bite a lateral hole or not; this latter point also largely depends on
the thickness of the outer part of the stem of the bramble. Fabre's
experiments on these points have been repeated, and his results
confirmed by Nicolas.

The fact that an Osmia would itself perish rather than attack the
cocoon of its brother or sister is certainly very remarkable, and it
induced Fabre to make some further experiments. He took some
cocoons containing dead specimens of Osmia, and placed them in
the road of an Osmia ready for exit, and found that in such case the
bee made its way out by demolishing without any scruple the
cocoons and dead larvae that intervened between it and liberty. He
then took some other reeds, and blocked the way of exit with
cocoons containing living larvae, but of another species of
Hymenoptera. Solenius vagus and Osmia detrita were the species
experimented on in this case, and he found that the Osmia
destroyed the cocoon and living larvae of the Solenius, and so made
its way out. Thus it appears that Osmia will respect the life of its own
species, and die rather than destroy it, but has no similar respect for
the life of another species.

Some of Fabre's most instructive chapters are devoted to the habits

and instincts of various species of the genus Osmia. It is impossible
here to find space even to summarise them, still more impossible to
do them justice; but we have selected the history just recounted,
because it is rare to find in the insect world instances of such self-
sacrifice by an individual for one of the same generation. It would be
quite improper to generalise from this case, however, and conclude
that such respect for its own species is common even amongst the
Osmia. Fabre, indeed, relates a case that offers a sad contrast to the
scene of self-sacrifice and respect for the rights of others that we
have roughly portrayed. He was able to induce a colony of Osmia
tricornis (another species of the genus, be it noted) to establish itself
and work in a series of glass tubes that he placed on a table in his
laboratory. He marked various individuals, so that he was able to
recognise them and note the progress of their industrial works. Quite
a large number of specimens thus established themselves and
concluded their work before his very eyes. Some individuals,
however, when they had completed the formation of a series of cells
in a glass tube or in a reed, had still not entirely completed their tale
of work. It would be supposed that in such a case the individual
would commence the formation of another series of cells in an
unoccupied tube. This was not, however, the case. The bee
preferred tearing open one or more cells already completed—in
some cases, even by itself—scattering the contents, and devouring
the egg; then again provisioning the cell, it would deposit a fresh
egg, and close the chamber. These brief remarks will perhaps suffice
to give some idea of the variety of instinct and habit that prevails in
this very interesting genus. Friese observes that the variety of habits
in this genus is accompanied as a rule by paucity of individuals of a
species, so that in central Europe a collector must be prepared to
give some twenty years or so of attention to the genus before he can
consider he has obtained all the species of Osmia that inhabit his
district.

As a prelude to the remarks we are about to make on the leaf-cutting

bees of the genus Megachile it is well to state that the bee, the
habits of which were described by Réaumur under the name of
"l'abeille tapissière," and that uses portions of the leaves of the
scarlet poppy to line its nest, is now assigned to the genus Osmia,
although Latreille, in the interval that has elapsed since the
publication of Réaumur's work, founded the genus Anthocopa for the
bee in question. Megachile is one of the most important of the
genera of the Dasygastres, being found in most parts of the world,
even in the Sandwich Islands; it consists of bees averaging about
the size of the honey-bee (though some are considerably larger,
others smaller), and having the labrum largely developed; this organ
is capable of complete inflection to the under side of the head, and
when in the condition of repose it is thus infolded, it underlaps and
protects the larger part of the lower lip; the mandibles close over the
infolded labrum, so that, when the Insect is at rest, this appears to be
altogether absent. These bees are called leaf-cutters, from their
habit of forming the cells for their nest out of pieces of the leaves of
plants. We have several species in Britain; they are very like the
common honey-bee in general appearance, though rather more
robustly formed. These Insects, like the Osmiae, avail themselves of
existing hollow places as receptacles in which to place their nests.
M. albocincta frequently takes possession of a deserted worm-
burrow in the ground. The burrow being longer than necessary the
bee commences by cutting off the more distant part by means of a
barricade of foliage; this being done, it proceeds to form a series of
cells, each shaped like a thimble with a lid at the open end (Fig. 22,
A). The body of the thimble is formed of large oval pieces of leaf, the
lid of smaller round pieces; the fragments are cut with great skill from
the leaves of growing plants by the Insect, which seems to have an
idea of the form and size of the piece of foliage necessary for each
particular stage of its work.

Fig. 22—Nidification of leaf-cutting bee, Megachile anthracina. A, one

cell separated, with lid open; the larva (a) reposing on the food; B,
part of a string of the cells. (After Horne.)

Horne has given particulars as to the nest of Megachile anthracina

(fasciculata), an East Indian species.[30] The material employed was
either the leaves of the Indian pulse or of the rose. Long pieces are
cut by the Insect from the leaf, and with these a cell is formed; a
circular piece is next cut, and with this a lid is made for the
receptacle. The cells are about the size and shape of a common
thimble; in one specimen that Horne examined no less than thirty-
two pieces of leaf disposed in seven layers were used for one cell, in
addition to three pieces for the round top. The cells are carefully
prepared, and some kind of matter of a gummy nature is believed to
be used to keep in place the pieces forming the interior layers. The
cells are placed end to end, as shown in Fig. 22, B; five to seven
cells form a series, and four or six series are believed to be
constructed by one pair of this bee, the mass being located in a
hollow in masonry or some similar position. Each cell when
completed is half filled with pollen in the usual manner, and an egg is
then laid in it. This bee is much infested by parasites, and is eaten by
the Grey Hornbill (Meniceros bicornis).
Megachile lanata is one of the Hymenoptera that in East India enter
houses to build their own habitations. According to Horne both sexes
take part in the work of construction, and the spots chosen are
frequently of a very odd nature. The material used is some kind of
clay, and the natural situation may be considered to be the interior of
a hollow tube, such as the stem of a bamboo; but the barrel of a gun,
and the hollow in the back of a book that has been left lying open,
have been occasionally selected by the Insect as suitable. Smith
states that the individuals developed in the lower part of a tubular
series of this species were females, "which sex takes longer to
develop, and thus an exit is not required for them so soon as for the
occupants of the upper cells which are males." M. proxima, a
species almost exactly similar in appearance to M. lanata, makes its
cells of leaf-cuttings, however, and places them in soft soil.

Fabre states that M. albocincta, which commences the formation of

its nest in a worm-burrow by means of a barricade, frequently makes
the barricade, but no nest; sometimes it will indeed make the
barricade more than twice the proper size, and thus completely fill up
the worm burrow. Fabre considers that these eccentric proceedings
are due to individuals that have already formed proper nests
elsewhere, and that after completing these have still some strength
remaining, which they use up in this fruitless manner.

The Social bees (Sociales) include, so far as is yet known, only a

very small number of genera, and are so diverse, both in habits and
structure, that the propriety of associating them in one group is more
than doubtful; the genera are Bombus (Fig. 331, vol. v.), with its
commensal genus or section, Psithyrus (Fig. 23); Melipona (Fig. 24),
in which Trigona and Tetragona may at present be included, and
Apis (Fig. 6); this latter genus comprising the various honey-bees
that are more or less completely domesticated in different parts of
the world.

In the genus Bombus the phenomena connected with the social life
are more similar to what we find among wasps than to what they are
in the genus Apis. The societies come to an end at the close of the
season, a few females live through the winter, and each of these
starts a new colony in the following spring. Males, females and
workers exist, but the latter are not distinguished by any good
characters from the females, and are, in fact, nothing but more or
less imperfect forms thereof; whereas in Apis the workers are
distinguished by structural characters not found in either of the true
sexes.

Hoffer has given a description of the commencement of a society of

Bombus lapidarius.[31] A large female, at the end of May, collected
together a small mass of moss, then made an expedition and
returned laden with pollen; under cover of the moss a cell was
formed of wax taken from the hind-body and mixed with the pollen
the bee had brought in; this cell was fastened to a piece of wood;
when completed it formed a subspherical receptacle, the outer wall
of which consisted of wax, and whose interior was lined with honey-
saturated pollen; then several eggs were laid in this receptacle, and
it was entirely closed. Hoffer took the completed cell away to use it
for museum purposes, and the following day the poor bee that had
formed it died. From observations made on Bombus agrorum he was
able to describe the subsequent operations; these are somewhat as
follows:—The first cell being constructed, stored, and closed, the
industrious architect, clinging to the cell, takes a few days' rest, and
after this interval commences the formation of a second cell; this is
placed by the side of the first, to which it is connected by a mixture of
wax and pollen; the second cell being completed a third may be
formed; but the labours of the constructor about this time are
augmented by the hatching of the eggs deposited a few days
previously; for the young larvae, having soon disposed of the small
quantity of food in the interior of the waxen cell, require feeding. This
operation is carried on by forming a small opening in the upper part
of the cell, through which the bee conveys food to the interior by
ejecting it from her mouth through the hole; whether the food is
conveyed directly to the mouths of the larvae or not, Hoffer was
unable to observe; it being much more difficult to approach this royal
founder without disturbing her than it is the worker-bees that carry on
similar occupations at a subsequent period in the history of the
society. The larvae in the first cell, as they increase in size,
apparently distend the cell in an irregular manner, so that it becomes
a knobbed and rugged, truffle-like mass. The same thing happens
with the other cells formed by the queen. Each of these larval
masses contains, it should be noticed, sister-larvae all of one age;
when full grown they pupate in the mass, and it is worthy of remark
that although all the eggs in one larval mass were laid at the same
time, yet the larvae do not all pupate simultaneously, neither do all
the perfect Insects appear at once, even if all are of one sex. The
pupation takes place in a cocoon that each larva forms for itself of
excessively fine silk. The first broods hatched are formed chiefly, if
not entirely, of workers, but small females may be produced before
the end of the season. Huber and Schmiedeknecht state that though
the queen provides the worker-cells with food before the eggs are
placed therein, yet no food is put in the cells in which males and
females are produced. The queen, at the time of pupation of the
larvae, scrapes away the wax by which the cocoons are covered,
thus facilitating the escape of the perfect Insect, and, it may also be,
aiding the access of air to the pupa. The colony at first grows very
slowly, as the queen can, unaided, feed only a small number of
larvae. But after she receives the assistance of the first batch of
workers much more rapid progress is made, the queen greatly
restricting her labours, and occupying herself with the laying of eggs;
a process that now proceeds more and more rapidly, the queen in
some cases scarcely ever leaving the nest, and in others even
becoming incapable of flight. The females produced during the
intermediate period of the colony are smaller than the mother, but
supplement her in the process of egg-laying, as also do the workers
to a greater or less extent. The conditions that determine the egg-
laying powers of these small females and workers are apparently
unknown, but it is ascertained that these powers vary greatly in
different cases, so that if the true queen die the continuation of the
colony is sometimes effectively carried on by these her former
subordinates. In other cases, however, the reverse happens, and
none of the inhabitants may be capable of producing eggs: in this
event two conditions may be present; either larvae may exist in the
nest, or they may be absent. In the former case the workers provide
them with food, and the colony may thus still be continued; but in the
latter case, there being no profitable occupation for the bees to
follow, they spend the greater part of the time sitting at home in the
nest.

Supposing all to go well with the colony it increases very greatly, but
its prosperity is checked in the autumn; at this period large numbers
of males are produced as well as new queens, and thereafter the
colony comes to an end, only a few fertilised females surviving the
winter, each one to commence for herself a new colony in the
ensuing spring.

The interior of the nest of a bumble-bee (Bombus) frequently

presents a very irregular appearance; this is largely owing to the fact
that these bees do not use the cells as cradles twice, but form others
as they may be required, on the old remains. The cells, moreover,
are of different sizes, those that produce workers being the smallest,
those that cradle females being the largest, while those in which
males are reared are intermediate in size. Although the old cells are
not used a second time for rearing brood they are nevertheless
frequently adapted to the purposes of receptacles for pollen and for
honey, and for these objects they may be increased in size and
altered in form.

It may be gathered from various records that the period required to

complete the development of the individual Bombus about
midsummer is four weeks from the deposition of the egg to the
emergence of the perfect Insect, but exact details and information as
to whether this period varies with the sex of the Insect developed are
not to be found. The records do not afford any reason for supposing
that such distinction will be found to exist: the size of the cells
appears the only correlation, suggested by the facts yet known,
between the sex of the individual and the circumstances of
development.
The colonies of Bombus vary greatly in prosperity, if we take as the
test of this the number of individuals produced in a colony. They
never, however, attain anything at all approaching to the vast number
of individuals that compose a large colony of wasps, or that exist in
the crowded societies of the more perfectly social bees. A populous
colony of a subterranean Bombus may attain the number of 300 or
400 individuals. Those that dwell on the surface are as a rule much
less populous, as they are less protected, so that changes of
weather are more prejudicial to them. According to Smith, the
average number of a colony of B. muscorum in the autumn in this
country is about 120—viz. 25 females, 36 males, 59 workers. No
mode of increasing the nests in a systematic manner exists in this
genus; they do not place the cells in stories as the wasps do; and
this is the case notwithstanding the fact that a cell is not twice used
for the rearing of young. When the ground-space available for cell-
building is filled the Bombus begins another series of cells on the
ruins of the first one. From this reason old nests have a very irregular
appearance, and this condition of seeming disorder is greatly
increased by the very different sizes of the cells themselves. We
have already alluded to some of these cells, more particularly to
those of different capacities to suit the sexes of the individuals to be
reared in them. In addition to these there are honey-tubs, pollen-
tubs, and the cells of the Psithyrus (Fig. 23), the parasitic but friendly
inmates of the Bombus-nests. A nest of Bombus, exhibiting the
various pots projecting from the remains of empty and partially
destroyed cells, presents, as may well be imagined, a very curious
appearance. Some of the old cells apparently are partly destroyed
for the sake of the material they are composed of. Others are formed
into honey-tubs, of a make-shift nature. It must be recollected that,
as a colony increases, stores of provisions become absolutely
necessary, otherwise in bad weather the larvae could not be fed. In
good weather, and when flowers abound, these bees collect and
store honey in abundance; in addition to placing it in the empty pupa-
cells, they also form for it special receptacles; these are delicate
cells made entirely of wax filled with honey, and are always left open
for the benefit of the community. The existence of these honey-tubs
in bumble-bees' nests has become known to our country urchins,
whose love for honey and for the sport of bee-baiting leads to
wholesale destruction of the nests. According to Hoffer, special tubs
for the storing of pollen are sometimes formed; these are much taller
than the other cells. The Psithyrus that live in the nests with the
Bombus are generally somewhat larger than the latter, and
consequently their cells may be distinguished in the nests by their
larger size. A bumble-bees' nest, composed of all these
heterogenous chambers rising out of the ruins of former layers of
cells, presents a scene of such apparent disorder that many have
declared that the bumble-bees do not know how to build.

Although the species of Bombus are not comparable with the hive-
bee in respect of the perfection and intelligent nature of their work,
yet they are very industrious Insects, and the construction of the
dwelling-places of the subterranean species is said to be carried out
in some cases with considerable skill, a dome of wax being formed
as a sort of roof over the brood cells. Some work even at night. Fea
has recorded the capture of a species in Upper Burmah working by
moonlight, and the same industry may be observed in this country if
there be sufficient heat as well as light. Godart, about 200 years ago,
stated that a trumpeter-bee is kept in some nests to rouse the
denizens to work in the morning: this has been treated as a fable by
subsequent writers, but is confirmed in a circumstantial manner by
Hoffer, who observed the performance in a nest of B. ruderatus in his
laboratory. On the trumpeter being taken away its office was the
following morning filled by another individual The trumpeting was
done as early as three or four o'clock in the morning, and it is by no
means impossible that the earliness of the hour may have had
something to do with the fact that for 200 years no one confirmed the
old naturalist's observation.

One of the most curious facts in connection with Bombus is the

excessive variation that many of the species display in the colour of
the beautiful hair with which they are so abundantly provided. There
is not only usually a difference between the sexes in this respect, but
also extreme variation within the limits of the same sex, more
especially in the case of the males and workers; there is also an
astonishing difference in the size of individuals. These variations are
carried to such an extent that it is almost impossible to discriminate
all the varieties of a species by inspection of the superficial
characters. The structures peculiar to the male, as well as the sting
of the female, enable the species to be determined with tolerable
certainty. Cholodkovsky,[32] on whose authority this statement as to
the sting is made, has not examined it in the workers, so that we do
not know whether it is as invariable in them as he states it to be in
queens of the same species. According to Handlirsch,[33] each
species of Bombus has the capacity of variation, and many of the
varieties are found in one nest, that is, among the offspring of a
single pair of the species, but many of the variations are restricted to
certain localities. Some of the forms can be considered as actual
("fertige") species, intermediate forms not being found, and even the
characters by which species are recognised being somewhat
modified. As examples of this he mentions Bombus silvarum and B.
arenicola, B. pratorum and B. scrimshiranus. In other cases,
however, the varieties are not so discontinuous, intermediate forms
being numerous; this condition is more common than the one we
have previously described; B. terrestris, B. hortorum, B. lapidarius
and B. pomorum are examples of these variable species. The
variation runs to a considerable extent in parallel lines in the different
species, there being a dark and a light form of each; also each
species that has a white termination to the body appears in a form
with a red termination, and vice versa. In the Caucasus many
species that have everywhere else yellow bands possess them
white; and in Corsica there are species that are entirely black, with a
red termination to the body, though in continental Europe the same
species exhibit yellow bands and a white termination to the body.
With so much variation it will be readily believed that much remains
to be done in the study of this fascinating genus. It is rich in species
in the Northern hemisphere, but poor in the Southern one, and in
both the Ethiopian and Australian regions it is thought to be entirely
wanting.
The species of the genus Psithyrus (Apathus of many authors)
inhabit the nests of Bombus; although less numerous than the
species of the latter genus, they also are widely distributed. They are
so like Bombus in appearance that they were not distinguished from
them by the earlier entomologists; and what is still more remarkable,
each species of Psithyrus resembles the Bombus with which it
usually lives. There appear, however, to be occasional exceptions to
this rule, Smith having seen one of the yellow-banded Psithyrus in
the nest of a red-tailed Bombus. Psithyrus is chiefly distinguished
from Bombus by the absence of certain characters that fit the latter
Insects for their industrial life; the hind tibiae have no smooth space
for the conveyance of pollen, and, so far as is known, there are only
two sexes, males and perfect females.
 Fig. 23—Psithyrus vestalis, Britain. A, Female, x 3⁄2; B, outer side of
hind leg.

The Bombus and Psithyrus live together on the best terms, and it
appears probable that the latter do the former no harm beyond
appropriating a portion of their food supplies. Schmiedeknecht says
they are commensals, not parasites; but it must be admitted that
singularly few descriptions of the habits and life-histories of these
interesting Insects have been recorded. Hoffer has, however, made
a few direct observations which confirm, and at the same time make
more definite, the vague ideas that have been generally prevalent
among entomologists. He found and took home a nest of Bombus
variabilis, which contained also a female of Psithyrus campestris, so
that he was able to make observations on the two. The Psithyrus
was much less industrious than the Bombus, and only left the nest
somewhat before noon, returning home again towards evening; after
about a month this specimen became still more inactive, and passed
entire days in the nest, occupying itself in consuming the stores of
honey of its hosts, of which very large quantities were absorbed, the
Psithyrus being much larger than the host-bee. The cells in which
the young of the Psithyrus are hatched are very much larger than
those of the Bombus, and, it may therefore be presumed, are formed
by the Psithyrus itself, for it can scarcely be supposed that the
Bombus carries its complaisance so far as to construct a cell
specially adapted to the superior stature of its uninvited boarder.
When a Psithyrus has been for some time a regular inhabitant of a
nest, the Bombus take its return home from time to time as a matter
of course, displaying no emotion whatever at its entry. Occasionally
Hoffer tried the introduction of a Psithyrus to a nest that had not
previously had one as an inmate. The new arrival caused a great
hubbub among the Bombus, which rushed to it as if to attack it, but
did not do so, and the alarm soon subsided, the Psithyrus taking up
the position in the nest usually affected by the individuals of the
species. On introducing a female Psithyrus to a nest of Bombus in
which a Psithyrus was already present as an established guest, the
latter asserted its rights and drove away the new comer. Hoffer also
tried the experiment of placing a Psithyrus campestris in the nest of
Bombus lapidarius—a species to which it was a stranger;
notwithstanding its haste to fly away, it was at once attacked by the
Bombus, who pulled it about but did not attempt to sting it.

When Psithyrus is present in a nest of Bombus it apparently affects

the inhabitants only by diminishing their stores of food to so great an
extent that the colony remains small instead of largely increasing in
numbers. Although Bombus variabilis, when left to itself, increases
the number of individuals in a colony to 200 or more, Hoffer found in
a nest in which Psithyrus was present, that on the 1st of September
the assemblage consisted only of a queen Bombus and fifteen
workers, together with eighteen specimens of the Psithyrus, eight of
these being females.

The nests of Bombus are destroyed by several animals, probably for

the sake of the honey contained in the pots; various kinds of small
mammals, such as mice, the weasel, and even the fox, are known to
destroy them; and quite a fauna of Insects may be found in them; the
relations of these to their hosts are very little known, but some
undoubtedly destroy the bees' larvae, as in the case of Meloe,
Mutilla and Conops. Birds do not as a rule attack these bees, though
the bee-eater, Merops apiaster, has been known to feed on them
very heavily.

The genera of social bees known as Melipona, Trigona or Tetragona,

may, according to recent authorities, be all included in one genus,
Melipona. Some of these Insects are amongst the smallest of bees,
so that one, or more, species go by the name of "Mosquito-bees."
The species appear to be numerous, and occur in most of the
tropical parts of the continents of the world, but unfortunately very
little is known as to their life-histories or economics; they are said to