The Termites may win - Herbert Noyes (b ? d1917)

Herbert Noyes was an Anglican priest in the last quarter of the 19th Century and first two decades of the 20th Century.

MILLIONS of years ago it was a point of issue whether Man or the Termite should possess the earth. Both being, in their natural state, the most helpless, unprotected, and weaponless of all creatures that walk - or crawl - the victory was in doubt, until, some aeons later, the ant came to the recue to the man and drove the Termite underground.
In entomology the Termite belongs to the order Isoptera, but is commonly known as the "white ant," because, as some humorist has observed, it is neither white nor an ant.
The life of the Termite is beyond all human comprrehension. Neither hereditary or evolution can adequately explain the miracles wrought by it. No scientist has ever put forward any reasonable explanation of the Power which guides their destiny - though no man can say what the last may be - is to me beyond doubt.
In a few thousand years, when the names and theories of our scientific teachers of today have faded from human memory, the Termite, secure in the fact that its total destruction is an economic impossibility, will be relentlessly pursuing his endless warfare against man and all his works. Empires and kingdoms, civilisations and creeds will dissapear, leaving no more vestiges behind than those which have preceded our own vaunted progress, but the inscrutably directed civilisation of the Termite, disdaining all mechanical aids, will remain to mock all our explanations.

Reprinted from Wit & Wisdom:
A medley of life and laughter,
London Burke Publishing Company Limited
1946.