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    In human groups how can this hostility be channeled to keep

    from blowing society apart?  It can be aimed safely away from "us"...

    and used to blast away at "them."

    There are innumerable causes for frustration in human life.  But

    the inability to fulfill one's potential is way up there on the list.  And

    that inability is by no means restricted to sex.  An ant is born with all

    the genetic equipment it needs to take on any role in society.32  If it is

    fed one mixture of food by the colonies' nurses, it turns into a soldier--a

    powerful beast far larger than normal size equipped with savage jaws

    and designed to defend the colony against attack.  If it is fed another

    mixture, it becomes a worker, a small but nimble creature capable of

    carrying loads many times the weight of its own body.  And if it is fed

    a rare potion reserved for the select few, it can blossom into a

    queen--the one central creature toward whose preservation all efforts

    are directed, the only ant who gets the privilege of having children.33

    Though an ant may have been hatched as a lowly worker, the

    blueprints for soldier and queen still lay dormant within her.  In fact, if

    the colony's ruler is killed by marauders or disease, a worker may

    suddenly blossom with the reproductive powers fate has denied her all

    her life.  She will begin to lay eggs.  Leaving her food gathering and

    housecleaning chores behind, she will exude a substance that instills in

    passersby the urge to feed and serve her...for she has ascended to

    royalty.34

    Humans also on occasion go through transformations that

    dramatize the possibilities buried within them.  During 1860, the

    citizens of Point Pleasant, Ohio, were distressed by the daily sight of a

    slightly rundown looking store clerk in his late-30s.  The man had been

    in the military, resigned under suspicious circumstances, failed at

    farming, failed at real estate, and ended up working in his father's

    leather goods store.  He was a poor excuse for a salesman, a

    worse-than-incompetent bill collector, and didn't even seem to know

    the establishment's stock.  What's more, there were rumors that he had

    a problem with the bottle.  Then, in 1861, the Civil War broke out, and

    the town failure enlisted in a regiment of volunteers.  Less than two

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