to have practiced mutual aid to such an extent as to be recognized even
by the ancient Greeks. Kropotkin quotes from memory, the Greek Orator
who exclaimed: “While I am speaking to you a sparrow has come to tell
other sparrows that a slave has dropped on the floor a sack of corn,
and they all go there to feed on the grain.” Sparrows also maintain
social discipline: “If a lazy sparrow intends appropriating the nest a
comrade is building, or even steals from it a few sprays of straw, the
group interferes against the lazy comrade.” Kropotkin presents a number
of well authenticated observations of the great compassion and sympathy
prevailing among those wild creatures, which are popularly supposed to
be always flying at each others’ throats: J. C. Woods’ narrative “of a
weasel which came to pick up and carry away an injured comrade;” Brehm,
who “himself saw two crows feeding in a hollow tree a third crow which
had a wound several weeks old.” Captain Stansbury, on his journey to
Utah, as quoted by Darwin, “saw a blind pelican which was fed, and well
fed, by other pelicans upon fishes which had to be brought a distance
of thirty miles.”
From these and a multitude of similar cases Kropotkin concludes that
while “no naturalist will doubt that the idea of a struggle for life,
carried on through organic nature, is the greatest generalization of
our century, that struggle is very often collective, against adverse
circumstances.”
Kropotkin in concluding his consideration of animals, immensely
strengthens his position by pointing out various methods by which new
species may develop or old ones disappear, without the operation of a
deadly competition between individuals. “The squirrels, for instance,
when there is a scarcity of cones in the larch forests, remove to
the fir-tree forests, and this change of food has certain well known
physiological effects on squirrels. If this change of habits does not
last--if next year the cones are again plentiful in the dark larch
wood--no new variety of squirrels will evidently arise from this cause.
But if part of the wide area occupied by the squirrels begins to have
its physical characters altered--in consequence of, let us say, a
milder climate or desiccation, (drying up) which both bring about an
increase of the pine forests in proportion to the larch woods--and
if some other conditions occur to induce squirrels to dwell on the
outskirts of the desiccating region--we shall then have a new, i. e.,
an incipient new species of squirrels. A larger proportion of squirrels
of the new, better-adapted variety would survive each year, and the
intermediate links would die in the course of time, without having been
starved out by Malthusian competitors.”
Again: “If we take the horses and cattle which are grazing all the
winter through in the Steppes of Transbaikalia, we find them very lean
and exhausted at the end of the winter. But they grow exhausted not
because there is not enough food for all of them--the grass buried
under a thin sheet of snow is everywhere in abundance--but because of
the difficulty of getting it from beneath the snow and this difficulty
is the same for all horses alike. * * * We can safely say that their
number are not kept down by competition; that at no time of the year
they need struggle, for food and that if they never reach anything,
approaching over-population, the cause is in the climate, and not in
competition.”
After citing the rodents that combine to store food for the winter, or
fall asleep about the time competition should set in; and the buffaloes
which form immense herds to migrate across a continent to where food
is plentiful; and beavers, which when they grow numerous, divide into
two parties, and go, the old ones down the river, and the young ones up
the river and avoid competition; after citing these and many others,
he declares the mandate of nature to be: “Don’t compete!--competition
is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources
to avoid it! * * * Therefore combine--practice mutual aid! That is the
surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the
best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectually, and
morally.”
The third chapter deals with “Mutual Aid Among Savages.” Here we meet
the question as to whether the family is an ancient institution,
antedating the tribe and clan or whether it appeared at a much later
date as an outgrowth of the clan. Kropotkin takes the latter view as
advocated by Morgan, Bachofen, Maine, Lubbock and Tylor, and rejects
the former as presented by Starcke and Westermarck.
The savage of anthropological research is shown to be a very different
creature from the blood-thirsty monster of popular tradition.
“Sometimes he is a cannibal, it is true, but not often, and then it
is closely associated with economic necessity, and is abandoned when
food becomes plentiful.” The custom of leaving old men in the woods to
die, is bad enough, but not so bad as supposed. They usually carry the
old man with them in their migrations until he himself grows tired of
being a burden and begs to be killed. When this point is reached, he
is given more than his share of food, and left in the woods to die,
because no one has the heart to kill him. Infanticide is practiced from
the same motive which induces savages to take all kinds of measures for
diminishing the birth-rate--they cannot rear all of their children.
In times of plenty it disappears. It was when these customs were
enveloped in a religious halo and preserved as sacred ceremonies, after
all necessity for them had disappeared, that they attained their most
revolting characters.
He believed in revenge but it was to be strictly measured by the
offense. It must be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; not a
head for an eye, or an eye for a tooth. He only killed his enemies,
and he always, at all costs, defended the members of his own tribe.
“Within the tribe everything is shared in common; every morsel of
food is divided among all present; and if the savage is alone in the
woods, he does not begin his meal until he has loudly shouted thrice
an invitation to any one who may hear his voice to share his meal.”...
“If he infringes one of the smaller tribal rules, he is prosecuted by
the mockeries of the women.” “When he enters his neighbors’ territory
he must loudly announce his coming, and if he enters a house he must
deposit his hatchet at the entrance. If one shows greediness when spoil
is divided all the others give him their share to shame him.” Scolding
and scorning are greatly condemned. Their children are not very
quarrelsome and very rarely fight. The most they may say, is, “Your
mother does not know sewing,” or “Your father is blind of one eye.”
The savage identified his interests with those of his tribe; he was no
individualist, and under no circumstances would he have consented to
child labor.
When we reach the barbarians, who are considered in the fourth chapter,
we enter the historical period. At first sight, mutual aid seems to be
non-existent at this period. Here there seems to be nothing but battle
and bloodshed. But the reason is not far to seek; it is because, until
recently historians regaled us exclusively with what has been aptly
called, “drum and trumpet history.” “They hand down to posterity the
most minute descriptions of every war, every battle and skirmish, every
contest and act of violence, every kind of individual suffering; but
they hardly give any trace of the countless acts of mutual support
and devotion which every one of us knows from his own experience *
* * The annalists of old never failed to chronicle the petty wars
and calamities which harrassed their contemporaries but they paid no
attention whatever to the life of the masses, although the masses
chiefly used to toil peacefully while the few indulged in fighting.”
But Sir Henry Maine in his work on the “Origin of International Law,”
has fully proved that “Man has never been so ferocious or so stupid
as to submit to such an evil as war without some kind of an effort to
prevent it.” And he has shown how exceedingly great is “the number of
ancient institutions which bear the marks of a design to stand in the
way of war, or to provide an alternative to it.”
A pregnant suggestion is offered as to the causes of that great
migration of barbarians which resulted in the overthrow of the Roman
empire. “It is desiccation, a quite recent desiccation continued still
at a speed which we formerly were not prepared to admit. Against it man
was powerless. When the inhabitants of North-West Mongolia and East
Turkestan saw that water was abandoning them they had no course open
to them but to move down the broad valleys leading to the lowlands,
and to thrust westward the inhabitants of the plains.” And so the one
great war recorded of the barbarians, was thrust upon them by absolute
physical necessity.
The barbarians had no social problem, for that private property in the
means of life which constitutes the foundation of modern individualism,
and from which the degradation and poverty of modern civilization
results, was unknown among them. They were communists. The interest of
one was the care of all. Nothing was owned privately until it reached
the very point of consumption and not always then, as food was largely
eaten at communal meals. This social form still survives especially in
Russia, and Kropotkin says: “The sight of a Russian commune mowing a
meadow--the men rivalling each other in their advance with the scythe,
while the women turn the grass over and throw it up into heaps--is
one of the most inspiring sights; it shows what human work might be
and ought to be. The hay, in such case, is divided among the separate
households, and it is evident that no one has the right of taking hay
from a neighbor’s stack without his permission; but the limitation of
this last rule among the Caucasian Ossetes is most noteworthy. When the
cuckoo cries and announces that spring is coming, and that the meadows
will soon be clothed again with grass, every one in need has the right
of taking from a neighbor’s stack the hay he wants for his cattle. The
old communal rights are thus reasserted, as if to prove how contrary
unbridled individualism is to human nature.”
When the early Christians “had all things in common,” they were not
reaching forward to modern Socialism; they were harking back to this
primitive communism which shed its joy and plenty on the sons and
daughters of men for a thousand generations. These barbarian communists
were thorough democrats, and their folkmotes, where everybody gathered
and had their say, were the only semblance of government they
possessed, and so thoroughly were its decisions respected that no
officers were needed to enforce them. They were also our superiors not
only in refusing to work their children, but also in scorning to beat
them. They said: “The body of the child reddens from the stroke, but
the face of him who strikes reddens from shame.”
The two chapters on “Mutual Aid in the Medieval City” treat the guild
as the chief manifestation of the principle during this period. A
picture is presented, in some detail of the struggle of the free cities
against the increasing encroachments of the centralizing states.
The medieval cities are finally defeated, the guilds destroyed, but
the indestructible principle of mutual aid takes on new forms and
accommodates itself to new conditions.
This brings us to the closing chapters on “Mutual Aid Among Ourselves.”
The first of these two chapters is devoted almost entirely to the
mutual aid habits and institutions which still survive in the present
day villages of Russia, Switzerland, France and Germany. The last
chapter takes up really modern instances of the principle, the first
and most important are the Labor unions and their strikes, Co-operative
societies, Life-boat associations, Charitable organizations.
The illustration of this principle which is cited first after the Labor
union is the Socialist movement. Kropotkin presents his conception of
the Socialist movement as a manifestation of mutual aid in existing
society in the following eloquent passage:
“Every experienced politician knows that all great political movements
were fought upon large and often distant issues, and that those of
them were the strongest which provoked most disinterested enthusiasm.
All great historical movements have had this character, and for our
own generation Socialism stands in that case. ‘Paid agitators,’ is, no
doubt, the favorite refrain of those who know nothing about it. The
truth however, is that--to speak only of what I know personally--if I
had kept a diary for the last twenty-four years, the reader of such a
diary would have had the word ‘heroism’ constantly on his lips. But
the men I would have spoken of were not heroes; they were average men,
inspired by a grand idea. Every Socialist newspaper--and there are
hundreds of them in Europe alone--has the same history of years of
sacrifice without any hope of reward, and, in the overwhelming majority
of cases, even without any personal ambition. I have seen families
living without knowing what would be their food tomorrow, the husband
boycotted all round in his little town for his part in the paper, and
the wife supporting the family by sewing, and such a situation lasting
for years, until the family would retire, without a word of reproach,
simply saying: ‘Continue; we can hold out no more!’ I have seen men,
dying from consumption, and knowing it, and yet knocking about in snow
and fog to prepare meetings within a few weeks from death, and only
then retiring to the hospital with the words: ‘Now friends I am done;
the doctors say I have but a few weeks to live. Tell the comrades I
shall be happy if they come to see me.’ I have seen facts that would be
described as ‘idealization’ if I told them in this place; and the very
names of these men, hardly known outside a narrow circle of friends,
will soon be forgotten when the friends too have passed away. In fact,
I don’t know myself which most to admire, the unbounded devotion of
these few or the sum total of petty acts of devotion of the great
number. Every quire of a penny paper sold, every meeting, every hundred
votes which are won at a Socialist election, represent an amount of
energy and sacrifices of which no outsider has the faintest idea. And
what is now done by Socialists has been done by every popular and
advanced party, political and religious, in the past. All past progress
has been promoted by like men and by a like devotion.”
VII.
A REPLY TO HAECKEL.
The revolt against “authority” has been carried to ridiculous extremes.
The Manchester school individualist, Herbert Spencer, and the
metaphysical egoist, Max Stirner, would alike agree to the reduction of
all authority to the smallest possible residue. The most reckless of
their disciples, having shut out from their thoughts all communication
with the world of reality, would make it impossible for six men to
pull effectively on a rope because five of them would be obliged to
recognize the authority of the sixth, when he, at the proper moment,
should call “Heave, ho.”
To thinkers of this order, music would be impossible. Who could imagine
a radical individualist bowing to a waved stick and recognizing the
highly centralized authority of the “leader.” The music of the logical,
authority-repudiating individualist, would be the haphazard beating of
the tom-tom of the East Indian, and not the highly regulated strains of
a modern orchestra.
This folly is equalled, if not out-done, by those who refuse to
recognize authority in science and thought. When a man claims to have
a new and fundamental discovery in astronomy, and at the same time
speaks slightingly of the researches of physicists such as Newton,
Kant, and Laplace, it is fairly safe to conclude that you are listening
to a fool who has nothing to say worthy of a second thought. Not until
one has trodden every rung of the ladder which has been previously
trodden, is he able to mount a step higher. And it is the performance
of this task, wholly, or at least in the first part, that constitutes
the one so doing an “authority.”
How often does one hear an addle-brained, know-nothing say: “I
recognize no authority; I think for myself.” How shall one think
without ideas? And how is it possible to obtain ideas apart from the
acquisition of knowledge? And where can knowledge be obtained except
from those who have it?
All “authority” in science and thought is founded on knowledge of the
subject in question. Socialists quote Karl Marx as an authority on
political economy, because his writings prove that he knew more about
the production and distribution of wealth than any man of his century.
Lavoisier is an authority in chemistry, because he know more about the
composition of substances than any three of his contemporaries.
But much confusion has been wrought, by men of undisputed authority in
their own field, pronouncing positive verdicts in departments where
their opinions had no value. What a great composer has to say about
the value of a certain note must be respectfully considered as being
of importance, but, unless he has studied geology, his opinions on the
probable origin or age of the Rocky Mountains will have no more value,
and may have less than those of the policeman on the nearest corner.
An excellent example of the confusion which may arise in this way,
was given to the world in 1877, at the Congress of Naturalists held
at Munich in September of that year. At that time the naturalists
of Europe were divided into two opposing camps, one accepting and
the other rejecting the Darwinian theory of “natural selection.” The
leaders of both divisions were Germans, though a preponderance of the
Germans favored Darwin, whilst the French, still under the influence
of, or agreeing with, Flourens, although he had been dead a decade,
were almost unanimously opposed.
The honors of leading the fight for Darwinism, at the Munich Congress,
fell to Haeckel, and on the 18th of September he threw down the gage
in a brilliant address in which he defended the ideas of the great
Englishman. Haeckel also advocated the teaching of evolution in the
schools. The battle raged back and forth between the two armies, until
Virchow, the great pathologist, dropped a bombshell in the Congress by
boldly asserting: “Darwinism leads directly to Socialism.”
Here biological arguments ceased. The only thing in order was to clear
the skirts of Darwinism of the terrible charge of being socialistic. Of
course this task fell to Haeckel, and he was loyally assisted by Oscar
Schmidt.
Writing in “Ausland” two months later Schmidt said: “If the Socialists
were prudent they would do their utmost to kill by silent neglect, the
theory of descent, for that theory most emphatically proclaims that the
Socialist ideas are impracticable.”
Haeckel replied to Virchow at some length, and as that reply is rather
difficult to obtain I will give it here in full as quoted by Ferri, and
translated by Robert Rives La Monte:
“As a matter of fact, there is no scientific doctrine which proclaims
more openly than the theory of descent, that the equality of
individuals, toward which Socialism tends, is an impossibility,
that this chimerical equality is in absolute contradiction with the
necessary and, in fact, universal inequality of individuals.
“Socialism demands for all citizens equal rights, equal duties, equal
possessions and equal enjoyments; the theory of descent establishes, on
the contrary, that the realization of these hopes is purely and simply
impossible; that in human societies, as in animal societies, neither
the rights, nor the duties, nor the possessions, nor the enjoyments of
all the members of a society are or ever can be equal.
“The great law of variation teaches--both in the general theory of
evolution and in the smaller field of biology where it becomes the
theory of descent--that the variety of phenomena flows from an original
unity, the diversity of functions from a primitive identity, and the
complexity of organization from a primordial simplicity. The conditions
of existence for all individuals are, from their very birth, unequal.
There must also be taken into consideration the inherited qualities and
the innate tendencies, which also vary more or less widely. In view of
all this, how can the work and the reward be equal for all?
“The more highly the social life is developed, the more important
becomes the great principle of the division of labor, the more
requisite it becomes for the stable existence of the state as a whole
that its members should distribute among themselves the multifarious
tasks of life, each performing a single function; and as the labor
which must be performed by the individuals, as well as the expenditure
of strength, talent, money, etc., which it necessitates, differs more
and more, it is natural that the remuneration of this labor must also
vary widely. These are facts so simple and so obvious that it seems to
me every intelligent and enlightened statesman ought to be an advocate
of the theory of descent and the general doctrine of evolution as the
best antidote for the absurd equalitarian, utopian notions of the
Socialists.
“And it was Darwinism, the theory of selection, that Virchow, in
his denunciation, had in mind, rather than the mere metamorphic
development, the theory of descent, with which it is always confused!
Darwinism is anything rather than socialistic.
“If one wishes to attribute a political tendency to this English
theory--which is quite permissible--this tendency can be nothing but
aristocratic; by no means can it be democratic, still less socialistic.
“The theory of selection teaches that in the life of mankind, as in
that of plants and animals, it is always and everywhere a small and
privileged minority alone which succeeds in living and developing
itself; the immense majority, on the contrary suffer and succumb
more or less prematurely. Countless are the seeds and eggs of every
species of plants and animals, and the young individuals who issue
from them. But the number of those who have the good fortune to reach
fully developed maturity and to attain the goal of their existence is
relatively insignificant.
“The cruel and pitiless ‘struggle for existence’ which rages everywhere
through animated nature, and which in the nature of things must rage,
this eternal and inexorable competition between all living beings is an
undeniable fact. Only a small picked number of the strongest or fittest
is able to come forth victoriously from this battle of competition. The
great majority of their unfortunate competitors are inevitably destined
to perish. It is well enough to deplore this tragic fatality, but one
cannot deny or change it. ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’
“The selection, the ‘election’ of these ‘elect’ is by absolute
necessity bound up with the rejection or destruction of the vast
multitude of beings whom they survived. And so another learned
Englishman has called the fundamental principle of Darwinism ‘the
survival of the fittest, the victory of the best.’
“At all events the principle of selection is not in the slightest
degree democratic; it is, on the contrary, thoroughly aristocratic. If
then, Darwinism, carried out to its ultimate logical consequences, has,
according to Virchow, for the statesman ‘an extraordinarily dangerous
side’ the danger is doubtless that it favors aristocratic aspirations.”
And now let us turn to the closing pages of the second volume of
Haeckel’s valuable work, “The History of Creation.” We shall find it
interesting and instructive to observe the nature of the argument which
he there uses with great effect against Virchow. Virchow had delivered
his celebrated address at Berlin, which closed as follows: “It is
absolutely certain that Man is not descended from apes.”