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MUTUAL AID
A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION
BY P. KROPOTKIN
1902
INTRODUCTION
Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I
made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them
was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most
species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the
enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural
agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory
which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those
few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to
find--although I was eagerly looking for it--that bitter struggle for
the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species,
which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin
himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the
main factor of evolution.
The terrible snow-storms which sweep over the northern portion of
Eurasia in the later part of the winter, and the glazed frost that often
follows them; the frosts and the snow-storms which return every year in
the second half of May, when the trees are already in full blossom and
insect life swarms everywhere; the early frosts and, occasionally, the
heavy snowfalls in July and August, which suddenly destroy myriads of
insects, as well as the second broods of the birds in the prairies; the
torrential rains, due to the monsoons, which fall in more temperate
regions in August and September--resulting in inundations on a scale
which is only known in America and in Eastern Asia, and swamping, on the
plateaus, areas as wide as European States; and finally, the heavy
snowfalls, early in October, which eventually render a territory as
large as France and Germany, absolutely impracticable for ruminants, and
destroy them by the thousand--these were the conditions under which I
saw animal life struggling in Northern Asia. They made me realize at an
early date the overwhelming importance in Nature of what Darwin
described as "the natural checks to over-multiplication," in comparison
to the struggle between individuals of the same species for the means of
subsistence, which may go on here and there, to some limited extent, but
never attains the importance of the former. Paucity of life,
under-population--not over-population--being the distinctive feature of
that immense part of the globe which we name Northern Asia, I conceived
since then serious doubts--which subsequent study has only confirmed--as
to the reality of that fearful competition for food and life within each
species, which was an article of faith with most Darwinists, and,
consequently, as to the dominant part which this sort of competition was
supposed to play in the evolution of new species.
On the other hand, wherever I saw animal life in abundance, as, for
instance, on the lakes where scores of species and millions of
individuals came together to rear their progeny; in the colonies of
rodents; in the migrations of birds which took place at that time on a
truly American scale along the Usuri; and especially in a migration of
fallow-deer which I witnessed on the Amur, and during which scores of
thousands of these intelligent animals came together from an immense
territory, flying before the coming deep snow, in order to cross the
Amur where it is narrowest--in all these scenes of animal life which
passed before my eyes, I saw Mutual Aid and Mutual Support carried on to
an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest
importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each
species, and its further evolution.
And finally, I saw among the semi-wild cattle and horses in
Transbaikalia, among the wild ruminants everywhere, the squirrels, and
so on, that when animals have to struggle against scarcity of food, in
consequence of one of the above-mentioned causes, the whole of that
portion of the species which is affected by the calamity, comes out of
the ordeal so much impoverished in vigour and health, that no
progressive evolution of the species can be based upon such periods of
keen competition.
Consequently, when my attention was drawn, later on, to the relations
between Darwinism and Sociology, I could agree with none of the works
and pamphlets that had been written upon this important subject. They
all endeavoured to prove that Man, owing to his higher intelligence and
knowledge, may mitigate the harshness of the struggle for life between
men; but they all recognized at the same time that the struggle for the
means of existence, of every animal against all its congeners, and of
every man against all other men, was "a law of Nature." This view,
however, I could not accept, because I was persuaded that to admit a
pitiless inner war for life within each species, and to see in that war
a condition of progress, was to admit something which not only had not
yet been proved, but also lacked confirmation from direct observation.
On the contrary, a lecture "On the Law of Mutual Aid," which was
delivered at a Russian Congress of Naturalists, in January 1880, by the
well-known zoologist, Professor Kessler, the then Dean of the St.
Petersburg University, struck me as throwing a new light on the whole
subject. Kessler's idea was, that besides the law of Mutual Struggle
there is in Nature the law of Mutual Aid, which, for the success of the
struggle for life, and especially for the progressive evolution of the
species, is far more important than the law of mutual contest. This
suggestion--which was, in reality, nothing but a further development of
the ideas expressed by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man--seemed to
me so correct and of so great an importance, that since I became
acquainted with it (in 1883) I began to collect materials for further
developing the idea, which Kessler had only cursorily sketched in his
lecture, but had not lived to develop. He died in 1881.
In one point only I could not entirely endorse Kessler's views. Kessler
alluded to "parental feeling" and care for progeny (see below, Chapter
I) as to the source of mutual inclinations in animals. However, to
determine how far these two feelings have really been at work in the
evolution of sociable instincts, and how far other instincts have been
at work in the same direction, seems to me a quite distinct and a very
wide question, which we hardly can discuss yet. It will be only after we
have well established the facts of mutual aid in different classes of
animals, and their importance for evolution, that we shall be able to
study what belongs in the evolution of sociable feelings, to parental
feelings, and what to sociability proper--the latter having evidently
its origin at the earliest stages of the evolution of the animal world,
perhaps even at the "colony-stages." I consequently directed my chief
attention to establishing first of all, the importance of the Mutual Aid
factor of evolution, leaving to ulterior research the task of
discovering the origin of the Mutual Aid instinct in Nature.
The importance of the Mutual Aid factor--"if its generality could only
be demonstrated"--did not escape the naturalist's genius so manifest in
Goethe. When Eckermann told once to Goethe--it was in 1827--that two
little wren-fledglings, which had run away from him, were found by him
next day in the nest of robin redbreasts (Rothkehlchen), which fed the
little ones, together with their own youngsters, Goethe grew quite
excited about this fact. He saw in it a confirmation of his pantheistic
views, and said:--"If it be true that this feeding of a stranger goes
through all Nature as something having the character of a general
law--then many an enigma would be solved." He returned to this matter on
the next day, and most earnestly entreated Eckermann (who was, as is
known, a zoologist) to make a special study of the subject, adding that
he would surely come "to quite invaluable treasuries of results"
(Gespräche, edition of 1848, vol. iii. pp. 219, 221). Unfortunately,
this study was never made, although it is very possible that Brehm, who
has accumulated in his works such rich materials relative to mutual aid
among animals, might have been inspired by Goethe's remark.
Several works of importance were published in the years 1872-1886,
dealing with the intelligence and the mental life of animals (they are
mentioned in a footnote in Chapter I of this book), and three of them
dealt more especially with the subject under consideration; namely, Les
Societes animales, by Espinas (Paris, 1877); La Lutte pour l'existence
et l'association pout la lutte, a lecture by J.L. Lanessan (April 1881);
and Louis Buchner's book, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt, of
which the first edition appeared in 1882 or 1883, and a second, much
enlarged, in 1885. But excellent though each of these works is, they
leave ample room for a work in which Mutual Aid would be considered, not
only as an argument in favour of a pre-human origin of moral instincts,
but also as a law of Nature and a factor of evolution. Espinas devoted
his main attention to such animal societies (ants, bees) as are
established upon a physiological division of labour, and though his work
is full of admirable hints in all possible directions, it was written at
a time when the evolution of human societies could not yet be treated
with the knowledge we now possess. Lanessan's lecture has more the
character of a brilliantly laid-out general plan of a work, in which
mutual support would be dealt with, beginning with rocks in the sea, and
then passing in review the world of plants, of animals and men. As to
Buchner's work, suggestive though it is and rich in facts, I could not
agree with its leading idea. The book begins with a hymn to Love, and
nearly all its illustrations are intended to prove the existence of love
and sympathy among animals. However, to reduce animal sociability to
love and sympathy means to reduce its generality and its importance,
just as human ethics based upon love and personal sympathy only have
contributed to narrow the comprehension of the moral feeling as a whole.
It is not love to my neighbour--whom I often do not know at all--which
induces me to seize a pail of water and to rush towards his house when I
see it on fire; it is a far wider, even though more vague feeling or
instinct of human solidarity and sociability which moves me. So it is
also with animals. It is not love, and not even sympathy (understood in
its proper sense) which induces a herd of ruminants or of horses to form
a ring in order to resist an attack of wolves; not love which induces
wolves to form a pack for hunting; not love which induces kittens or
lambs to play, or a dozen of species of young birds to spend their days
together in the autumn; and it is neither love nor personal sympathy
which induces many thousand fallow-deer scattered over a territory as
large as France to form into a score of separate herds, all marching
towards a given spot, in order to cross there a river. It is a feeling
infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy--an instinct that has
been slowly developed among animals and men in the course of an
extremely long evolution, and which has taught animals and men alike the
force they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and support, and
the joys they can find in social life.
The importance of this distinction will be easily appreciated by the
student of animal psychology, and the more so by the student of human
ethics. Love, sympathy and self-sacrifice certainly play an immense part
in the progressive development of our moral feelings. But it is not love
and not even sympathy upon which Society is based in mankind. It is the
conscience--be it only at the stage of an instinct--of human solidarity.
It is the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each
man from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependency of every
one's happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of justice,
or equity, which brings the individual to consider the rights of every
other individual as equal to his own. Upon this broad and necessary
foundation the still higher moral feelings are developed. But this
subject lies outside the scope of the present work, and I shall only
indicate here a lecture, "Justice and Morality" which I delivered in
reply to Huxley's Ethics, and in which the subject has been treated at
some length.
Consequently I thought that a book, written on Mutual Aid as a Law of
Nature and a factor of evolution, might fill an important gap. When
Huxley issued, in 1888, his "Struggle-for-life" manifesto (Struggle for
Existence and its Bearing upon Man), which to my appreciation was a very
incorrect representation of the facts of Nature, as one sees them in the
bush and in the forest, I communicated with the editor of the Nineteenth
Century, asking him whether he would give the hospitality of his review
to an elaborate reply to the views of one of the most prominent
Darwinists; and Mr. James Knowles received the proposal with fullest
sympathy. I also spoke of it to W. Bates. "Yes, certainly; that is true
Darwinism," was his reply. "It is horrible what 'they' have made of
Darwin. Write these articles, and when they are printed, I will write to
you a letter which you may publish." Unfortunately, it took me nearly
seven years to write these articles, and when the last was published,
Bates was no longer living.
After having discussed the importance of mutual aid in various classes
of animals, I was evidently bound to discuss the importance of the same
factor in the evolution of Man. This was the more necessary as there are
a number of evolutionists who may not refuse to admit the importance of
mutual aid among animals, but who, like Herbert Spencer, will refuse to
admit it for Man. For primitive Man--they maintain--war of each against
all was the law of life. In how far this assertion, which has been too
willingly repeated, without sufficient criticism, since the times of
Hobbes, is supported by what we know about the early phases of human
development, is discussed in the chapters given to the Savages and the
Barbarians.
The number and importance of mutual-aid institutions which were
developed by the creative genius of the savage and half-savage masses,
during the earliest clan-period of mankind and still more during the
next village-community period, and the immense influence which these
early institutions have exercised upon the subsequent development of
mankind, down to the present times, induced me to extend my researches
to the later, historical periods as well; especially, to study that most
interesting period--the free medieval city republics, of which the
universality and influence upon our modern civilization have not yet
been duly appreciated. And finally, I have tried to indicate in brief
the immense importance which the mutual-support instincts, inherited by
mankind from its extremely long evolution, play even now in our modern
society, which is supposed to rest upon the principle: "every one for
himself, and the State for all," but which it never has succeeded, nor
will succeed in realizing.
It may be objected to this book that both animals and men are
represented in it under too favourable an aspect; that their sociable
qualities are insisted upon, while their anti-social and self-asserting
instincts are hardly touched upon. This was, however, unavoidable. We
have heard so much lately of the "harsh, pitiless struggle for life,"
which was said to be carried on by every animal against all other
animals, every "savage" against all other "savages," and every civilized
man against all his co-citizens--and these assertions have so much
become an article of faith--that it was necessary, first of all, to
oppose to them a wide series of facts showing animal and human life
under a quite different aspect. It was necessary to indicate the
overwhelming importance which sociable habits play in Nature and in the
progressive evolution of both the animal species and human beings: to
prove that they secure to animals a better protection from their
enemies, very often facilities for getting food and (winter provisions,
migrations, etc.), longevity, therefore a greater facility for the
development of intellectual faculties; and that they have given to men,
in addition to the same advantages, the possibility of working out those
institutions which have enabled mankind to survive in its hard struggle
against Nature, and to progress, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of
its history. It is a book on the law of Mutual Aid, viewed at as one of
the chief factors of evolution--not on all factors of evolution and
their respective values; and this first book had to be written, before
the latter could become possible.
I should certainly be the last to underrate the part which the
self-assertion of the individual has played in the evolution of mankind.
However, this subject requires, I believe, a much deeper treatment than
the one it has hitherto received. In the history of mankind, individual
self-assertion has often been, and continually is, something quite
different from, and far larger and deeper than, the petty, unintelligent
narrow-mindedness, which, with a large class of writers, goes for
"individualism" and "self-assertion." Nor have history-making
individuals been limited to those whom historians have represented as
heroes. My intention, consequently, is, if circumstances permit it, to
discuss separately the part taken by the self-assertion of the
individual in the progressive evolution of mankind. I can only make in
this place the following general remark:--When the Mutual Aid
institutions--the tribe, the village community, the guilds, the medieval
city--began, in the course of history, to lose their primitive
character, to be invaded by parasitic growths, and thus to become
hindrances to progress, the revolt of individuals against these
institutions took always two different aspects. Part of those who rose
up strove to purify the old institutions, or to work out a higher form
of commonwealth, based upon the same Mutual Aid principles; they tried,
for instance, to introduce the principle of "compensation," instead of
the lex talionis, and later on, the pardon of offences, or a still
higher ideal of equality before the human conscience, in lieu of
"compensation," according to class-value. But at the very same time,
another portion of the same individual rebels endeavoured to break down
the protective institutions of mutual support, with no other intention
but to increase their own wealth and their own powers. In this
three-cornered contest, between the two classes of revolted individuals
and the supporters of what existed, lies the real tragedy of history.
But to delineate that contest, and honestly to study the part played in
the evolution of mankind by each one of these three forces, would
require at least as many years as it took me to write this book.
Of works dealing with nearly the same subject, which have been published
since the publication of my articles on Mutual Aid among Animals, I must
mention The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man, by Henry Drummond
(London, 1894), and The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, by A.
Sutherland (London, 1898). Both are constructed chiefly on the lines
taken in Buchner's Love, and in the second work the parental and
familial feeling as the sole influence at work in the development of the
moral feelings has been dealt with at some length. A third work dealing
with man and written on similar lines is The Principles of Sociology, by
Prof. F.A. Giddings, the first edition of which was published in 1896 at
New York and London, and the leading ideas of which were sketched by the
author in a pamphlet in 1894. I must leave, however, to literary critics
the task of discussing the points of contact, resemblance, or divergence
between these works and mine.
The different chapters of this book were published first in the
Nineteenth Century ("Mutual Aid among Animals," in September and
November 1890; "Mutual Aid among Savages," in April 1891; "Mutual Aid
among the Barbarians," in January 1892; "Mutual Aid in the Medieval
City," in August and September 1894; and "Mutual Aid amongst Modern
Men," in January and June 1896). In bringing them out in a book form my
first intention was to embody in an Appendix the mass of materials, as
well as the discussion of several secondary points, which had to be
omitted in the review articles. It appeared, however, that the Appendix
would double the size of the book, and I was compelled to abandon, or,
at least, to postpone its publication. The present Appendix includes the
discussion of only a few points which have been the matter of scientific
controversy during the last few years; and into the text I have
introduced only such matter as could be introduced without altering the
structure of the work.
I am glad of this opportunity for expressing to the editor of the
Nineteenth Century, Mr. James Knowles, my very best thanks, both for the
kind hospitality which he offered to these papers in his review, as soon
as he knew their general idea, and the permission he kindly gave me to
reprint them.
Bromley, Kent, 1902.
CHAPTER I
MUTUAL AID AMONG ANIMALS
Struggle for existence. Mutual Aid a law of Nature and chief factor of
progressive evolution. Invertebrates. Ants and Bees. Birds, hunting and
fishing associations. Sociability. Mutual protection among small birds.
Cranes, parrots.
The conception of struggle for existence as a factor of evolution,
introduced into science by Darwin and Wallace, has permitted us to
embrace an immensely wide range of phenomena in one single
generalization, which soon became the very basis of our philosophical,
biological, and sociological speculations. An immense variety of
facts:--adaptations of function and structure of organic beings to their
surroundings; physiological and anatomical evolution; intellectual
progress, and moral development itself, which we formerly used to
explain by so many different causes, were embodied by Darwin in one
general conception. We understood them as continued endeavours--as a
struggle against adverse circumstances--for such a development of
individuals, races, species and societies, as would result in the
greatest possible fulness, variety, and intensity of life. It may be
that at the outset Darwin himself was not fully aware of the generality
of the factor which he first invoked for explaining one series only of
facts relative to the accumulation of individual variations in incipient
species. But he foresaw that the term which he was introducing into
science would lose its philosophical and its only true meaning if it
were to be used in its narrow sense only--that of a struggle between
separate individuals for the sheer means of existence. And at the very
beginning of his memorable work he insisted upon the term being taken in
its "large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on
another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of
the individual, but success in leaving progeny."(1)
While he himself was chiefly using the term in its narrow sense for his
own special purpose, he warned his followers against committing the
error (which he seems once to have committed himself) of overrating its
narrow meaning. In The Descent of Man he gave some powerful pages to
illustrate its proper, wide sense. He pointed out how, in numberless
animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the
means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation,
and how that substitution results in the development of intellectual and
moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for
survival. He intimated that in such cases the fittest are not the
physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine
so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the
welfare of the community. "Those communities," he wrote, "which included
the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best,
and rear the greatest number of offspring" (2nd edit., p. 163). The
term, which originated from the narrow Malthusian conception of
competition between each and all, thus lost its narrowness in the mind
of one who knew Nature.
Unhappily, these remarks, which might have become the basis of most
fruitful researches, were overshadowed by the masses of facts gathered
for the purpose of illustrating the consequences of a real competition
for life. Besides, Darwin never attempted to submit to a closer
investigation the relative importance of the two aspects under which the
struggle for existence appears in the animal world, and he never wrote
the work he proposed to write upon the natural checks to
over-multiplication, although that work would have been the crucial test
for appreciating the real purport of individual struggle. Nay, on the
very pages just mentioned, amidst data disproving the narrow Malthusian
conception of struggle, the old Malthusian leaven reappeared--namely, in
Darwin's remarks as to the alleged inconveniences of maintaining the
"weak in mind and body" in our civilized societies (ch. v). As if
thousands of weak-bodied and infirm poets, scientists, inventors, and
reformers, together with other thousands of so-called "fools" and
"weak-minded enthusiasts," were not the most precious weapons used by
humanity in its struggle for existence by intellectual and moral arms,
which Darwin himself emphasized in those same chapters of Descent of
Man.
It happened with Darwin's theory as it always happens with theories
having any bearing upon human relations. Instead of widening it
according to his own hints, his followers narrowed it still more. And
while Herbert Spencer, starting on independent but closely allied lines,
attempted to widen the inquiry into that great question, "Who are the
fittest?" especially in the appendix to the third edition of the Data of
Ethics, the numberless followers of Darwin reduced the notion of
struggle for existence to its narrowest limits. They came to conceive
the animal world as a world of perpetual struggle among half-starved
individuals, thirsting for one another's blood. They made modern
literature resound with the war-cry of woe to the vanquished, as if it
were the last word of modern biology. They raised the "pitiless"
struggle for personal advantages to the height of a biological principle
which man must submit to as well, under the menace of otherwise
succumbing in a world based upon mutual extermination. Leaving aside the
economists who know of natural science but a few words borrowed from
second-hand vulgarizers, we must recognize that even the most authorized
exponents of Darwin's views did their best to maintain those false
ideas. In fact, if we take Huxley, who certainly is considered as one of
the ablest exponents of the theory of evolution, were we not taught by
him, in a paper on the 'Struggle for Existence and its Bearing upon
Man,' that,
"from the point of view of the moralist, the animal world is on
about the same level as a gladiators' show. The creatures are
fairly well treated, and set to, fight hereby the strongest, the
swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The
spectator has no need to turn his thumb down, as no quarter is
given."
Or, further down in the same article, did he not tell us that, as among
animals, so among primitive men,
"the weakest and stupidest went to the wall, while the toughest and
shrewdest, those who were best fitted to cope with their
circumstances, but not the best in another way, survived. Life was
a continuous free fight, and beyond the limited and temporary
relations of the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all was
the normal state of existence."(2)
In how far this view of nature is supported by fact, will be seen from
the evidence which will be here submitted to the reader as regards the
animal world, and as regards primitive man. But it may be remarked at
once that Huxley's view of nature had as little claim to be taken as a
scientific deduction as the opposite view of Rousseau, who saw in nature
but love, peace, and harmony destroyed by the accession of man. In fact,
the first walk in the forest, the first observation upon any animal
society, or even the perusal of any serious work dealing with animal
life (D'Orbigny's, Audubon's, Le Vaillant's, no matter which), cannot
but set the naturalist thinking about the part taken by social life in
the life of animals, and prevent him from seeing in Nature nothing but a
field of slaughter, just as this would prevent him from seeing in Nature
nothing but harmony and peace. Rousseau had committed the error of
excluding the beak-and-claw fight from his thoughts; and Huxley
committed the opposite error; but neither Rousseau's optimism nor
Huxley's pessimism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of
nature.
As soon as we study animals--not in laboratories and museums only, but
in the forest and the prairie, in the steppe and the mountains--we at
once perceive that though there is an immense amount of warfare and
extermination going on amidst various species, and especially amidst
various classes of animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or
perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence
amidst animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same
society. Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle. Of
course it would be extremely difficult to estimate, however roughly, the
relative numerical importance of both these series of facts. But if we
resort to an indirect test, and ask Nature: "Who are the fittest: those
who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one
another?" we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of
mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to
survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest
development of intelligence and bodily organization. If the numberless
facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into
account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal
life as mutual struggle, but that, as a factor of evolution, it most
probably has a far greater importance, inasmuch as it favours the
development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and
further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of
welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste
of energy.
Of the scientific followers of Darwin, the first, as far as I know, who
understood the full purport of Mutual Aid as a law of Nature and the
chief factor of evolution, was a well-known Russian zoologist, the late
Dean of the St. Petersburg University, Professor Kessler. He developed
his ideas in an address which he delivered in January 1880, a few months
before his death, at a Congress of Russian naturalists; but, like so
many good things published in the Russian tongue only, that remarkable
address remains almost entirely unknown.(3)
"As a zoologist of old standing," he felt bound to protest against the
abuse of a term--the struggle for existence--borrowed from zoology, or,
at least, against overrating its importance. Zoology, he said, and those
sciences which deal with man, continually insist upon what they call the
pitiless law of struggle for existence. But they forget the existence of
another law which may be described as the law of mutual aid, which law,
at least for the animals, is far more essential than the former. He
pointed out how the need of leaving progeny necessarily brings animals
together, and, "the more the individuals keep together, the more they
mutually support each other, and the more are the chances of the species
for surviving, as well as for making further progress in its
intellectual development." "All classes of animals," he continued, "and
especially the higher ones, practise mutual aid," and he illustrated his
idea by examples borrowed from the life of the burying beetles and the
social life of birds and some mammalia. The examples were few, as might
have been expected in a short opening address, but the chief points were
clearly stated; and, after mentioning that in the evolution of mankind
mutual aid played a still more prominent part, Professor Kessler
concluded as follows:--
"I obviously do not deny the struggle for existence, but I maintain that
the progressive development of the animal kingdom, and especially of
mankind, is favoured much more by mutual support than by mutual
struggle.... All organic beings have two essential needs: that of
nutrition, and that of propagating the species. The former brings them
to a struggle and to mutual extermination, while the needs of
maintaining the species bring them to approach one another and to
support one another. But I am inclined to think that in the evolution of
the organic world--in the progressive modification of organic
beings--mutual support among individuals plays a much more important
part than their mutual struggle."(4)
The correctness of the above views struck most of the Russian zoologists
present, and Syevertsoff, whose work is well known to ornithologists and
geographers, supported them and illustrated them by a few more examples.
He mentioned sone of the species of falcons which have "an almost ideal
organization for robbery," and nevertheless are in decay, while other
species of falcons, which practise mutual help, do thrive. "Take, on the
other side, a sociable bird, the duck," he said; "it is poorly organized
on the whole, but it practises mutual support, and it almost invades the
earth, as may be judged from its numberless varieties and species."
The readiness of the Russian zoologists to accept Kessler's views seems
quite natural, because nearly all of them have had opportunities of
studying the animal world in the wide uninhabited regions of Northern
Asia and East Russia; and it is impossible to study like regions without
being brought to the same ideas. I recollect myself the impression
produced upon me by the animal world of Siberia when I explored the
Vitim regions in the company of so accomplished a zoologist as my friend
Polyakoff was. We both were under the fresh impression of the Origin of
Species, but we vainly looked for the keen competition between animals
of the same species which the reading of Darwin's work had prepared us
to expect, even after taking into account the remarks of the third
chapter (p. 54). We saw plenty of adaptations for struggling, very often
in common, against the adverse circumstances of climate, or against
various enemies, and Polyakoff wrote many a good page upon the mutual
dependency of carnivores, ruminants, and rodents in their geographical
distribution; we witnessed numbers of facts of mutual support,
especially during the migrations of birds and ruminants; but even in the
Amur and Usuri regions, where animal life swarms in abundance, facts of
real competition and struggle between higher animals of the same species
came very seldom under my notice, though I eagerly searched for them.
The same impression appears in the works of most Russian zoologists, and
it probably explains why Kessler's ideas were so welcomed by the Russian
Darwinists, whilst like ideas are not in vogue amidst the followers of
Darwin in Western Europe.
The first thing which strikes us as soon as we begin studying the
struggle for existence under both its aspects--direct and
metaphorical--is the abundance of facts of mutual aid, not only for
rearing progeny, as recognized by most evolutionists, but also for the
safety of the individual, and for providing it with the necessary food.
With many large divisions of the animal kingdom mutual aid is the rule.
Mutual aid is met with even amidst the lowest animals, and we must be
prepared to learn some day, from the students of microscopical
pond-life, facts of unconscious mutual support, even from the life of
micro-organisms. Of course, our knowledge of the life of the
invertebrates, save the termites, the ants, and the bees, is extremely
limited; and yet, even as regards the lower animals, we may glean a few
facts of well-ascertained cooperation. The numberless associations of
locusts, vanessae, cicindelae, cicadae, and so on, are practically quite
unexplored; but the very fact of their existence indicates that they
must be composed on about the same principles as the temporary
associations of ants or bees for purposes of migration. As to the
beetles, we have quite well-observed facts of mutual help amidst the
burying beetles (Necrophorus). They must have some decaying organic
matter to lay their eggs in, and thus to provide their larvae with food;
but that matter must not decay very rapidly. So they are wont to bury in
the ground the corpses of all kinds of small animals which they
occasionally find in their rambles. As a rule, they live an isolated
life, but when one of them has discovered the corpse of a mouse or of a
bird, which it hardly could manage to bury itself, it calls four, six,
or ten other beetles to perform the operation with united efforts; if
necessary, they transport the corpse to a suitable soft ground; and they
bury it in a very considerate way, without quarrelling as to which of
them will enjoy the privilege of laying its eggs in the buried corpse.
And when Gleditsch attached a dead bird to a cross made out of two
sticks, or suspended a toad to a stick planted in the soil, the little
beetles would in the same friendly way combine their intelligences to
overcome the artifice of Man. The same combination of efforts has been
noticed among the dung-beetles.
Even among animals standing at a somewhat lower stage of organization we
may find like examples. Some land-crabs of the West Indies and North
America combine in large swarms in order to travel to the sea and to
deposit therein their spawn; and each such migration implies concert,
co-operation, and mutual support. As to the big Molucca crab (Limulus),
I was struck (in 1882, at the Brighton Aquarium) with the extent of
mutual assistance which these clumsy animals are capable of bestowing
upon a comrade in case of need. One of them had fallen upon its back in
a corner of the tank, and its heavy saucepan-like carapace prevented it
from returning to its natural position, the more so as there was in the
corner an iron bar which rendered the task still more difficult. Its
comrades came to the rescue, and for one hour's time I watched how they
endeavoured to help their fellow-prisoner. They came two at once, pushed
their friend from beneath, and after strenuous efforts succeeded in
lifting it upright; but then the iron bar would prevent them from
achieving the work of rescue, and the crab would again heavily fall upon
its back. After many attempts, one of the helpers would go in the depth
of the tank and bring two other crabs, which would begin with fresh
forces the same pushing and lifting of their helpless comrade. We stayed
in the Aquarium for more than two hours, and, when leaving, we again
came to cast a glance upon the tank: the work of rescue still continued!
Since I saw that, I cannot refuse credit to the observation quoted by
Dr. Erasmus Darwin--namely, that "the common crab during the moulting
season stations as sentinel an unmoulted or hard-shelled individual to
prevent marine enemies from injuring moulted individuals in their
unprotected state."(5)
Facts illustrating mutual aid amidst the termites, the ants, and the
bees are so well known to the general reader, especially through the
works of Romanes, L. Buchner, and Sir John Lubbock, that I may limit my
remarks to a very few hints.(6) If we take an ants' nest, we not only
see that every description of work-rearing of progeny, foraging,
building, rearing of aphides, and so on--is performed according to the
principles of voluntary mutual aid; we must also recognize, with Forel,
that the chief, the fundamental feature of the life of many species of
ants is the fact and the obligation for every ant of sharing its food,
already swallowed and partly digested, with every member of the
community which may apply for it. Two ants belonging to two different
species or to two hostile nests, when they occasionally meet together,
will avoid each other. But two ants belonging to the same nest or to the
same colony of nests will approach each other, exchange a few movements
with the antennae, and "if one of them is hungry or thirsty, and
especially if the other has its crop full ... it immediately asks for
food." The individual thus requested never refuses; it sets apart its
mandibles, takes a proper position, and regurgitates a drop of
transparent fluid which is licked up by the hungry ant. Regurgitating
food for other ants is so prominent a feature in the life of ants (at
liberty), and it so constantly recurs both for feeding hungry comrades
and for feeding larvae, that Forel considers the digestive tube of the
ants as consisting of two different parts, one of which, the posterior,
is for the special use of the individual, and the other, the anterior
part, is chiefly for the use of the community. If an ant which has its
crop full has been selfish enough to refuse feeding a comrade, it will
be treated as an enemy, or even worse. If the refusal has been made
while its kinsfolk were fighting with some other species, they will fall
back upon the greedy individual with greater vehemence than even upon
the enemies themselves. And if an ant has not refused to feed another
ant belonging to an enemy species, it will be treated by the kinsfolk of
the latter as a friend. All this is confirmed by most accurate
observation and decisive experiments.(7)
In that immense division of the animal kingdom which embodies more than
one thousand species, and is so numerous that the Brazilians pretend
that Brazil belongs to the ants, not to men, competition amidst the
members of the same nest, or the colony of nests, does not exist.
However terrible the wars between different species, and whatever the
atrocities committed at war-time, mutual aid within the community,
self-devotion grown into a habit, and very often self-sacrifice for the
common welfare, are the rule. The ants and termites have renounced the
"Hobbesian war," and they are the better for it. Their wonderful nests,
their buildings, superior in relative size to those of man; their paved
roads and overground vaulted galleries; their spacious halls and
granaries; their corn-fields, harvesting and "malting" of grain;(8)
their, rational methods of nursing their eggs and larvae, and of
building special nests for rearing the aphides whom Linnaeus so
picturesquely described as "the cows of the ants"; and, finally, their
courage, pluck, and, superior intelligence--all these are the natural
outcome of the mutual aid which they practise at every stage of their
busy and laborious lives. That mode of life also necessarily resulted in
the development of another essential feature of the life of ants: the
immense development of individual initiative which, in its turn,
evidently led to the development of that high and varied intelligence
which cannot but strike the human observer.(9)
If we knew no other facts from animal life than what we know about the
ants and the termites, we already might safely conclude that mutual aid
(which leads to mutual confidence, the first condition for courage) and
individual initiative (the first condition for intellectual progress)
are two factors infinitely more important than mutual struggle in the
evolution of the animal kingdom. In fact, the ant thrives without having
any of the "protective" features which cannot be dispensed with by
animals living an isolated life. Its colour renders it conspicuous to
its enemies, and the lofty nests of many species are conspicuous in the
meadows and forests. It is not protected by a hard carapace, and its
stinging apparatus, however dangerous when hundreds of stings are
plunged into the flesh of an animal, is not of a great value for
individual defence; while the eggs and larvae of the ants are a dainty
for a great number of the inhabitants of the forests. And yet the ants,
in their thousands, are not much destroyed by the birds, not even by the
ant-eaters, and they are dreaded by most stronger insects. When Forel
emptied a bagful of ants in a meadow, he saw that "the crickets ran
away, abandoning their holes to be sacked by the ants; the grasshoppers
and the crickets fled in all directions; the spiders and the beetles
abandoned their prey in order not to become prey themselves;" even the
nests of the wasps were taken by the ants, after a battle during which
many ants perished for the safety of the commonwealth. Even the swiftest
insects cannot escape, and Forel often saw butterflies, gnats, flies,
and so on, surprised and killed by the ants. Their force is in mutual
support and mutual confidence. And if the ant--apart from the still
higher developed termites--stands at the very top of the whole class of
insects for its intellectual capacities; if its courage is only equalled
by the most courageous vertebrates; and if its brain--to use Darwin's
words--"is one of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the world,
perhaps more so than the brain of man," is it not due to the fact that
mutual aid has entirely taken the place of mutual struggle in the
communities of ants?
The same is true as regards the bees. These small insects, which so
easily might become the prey of so many birds, and whose honey has so
many admirers in all classes of animals from the beetle to the bear,
also have none of the protective features derived from mimicry or
otherwise, without which an isolatedly living insect hardly could escape
wholesale destruction; and yet, owing to the mutual aid they practise,
they obtain the wide extension which we know and the intelligence we
admire, By working in common they multiply their individual forces; by
resorting to a temporary division of labour combined with the capacity
of each bee to perform every kind of work when required, they attain
such a degree of well-being and safety as no isolated animal can ever
expect to achieve however strong or well armed it may be. In their
combinations they are often more successful than man, when he neglects
to take advantage of a well-planned mutual assistance. Thus, when a new
swarm of bees is going to leave the hive in search of a new abode, a
number of bees will make a preliminary exploration of the neighbourhood,
and if they discover a convenient dwelling-place--say, an old basket, or
anything of the kind--they will take possession of it, clean it, and
guard it, sometimes for a whole week, till the swarm comes to settle
therein. But how many human settlers will perish in new countries simply
for not having understood the necessity of combining their efforts! By
combining their individual intelligences they succeed in coping with
adverse circumstances, even quite unforeseen and unusual, like those
bees of the Paris Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis
the shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive. Besides,
they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and love of useless
fighting with which many writers so readily endow animals. The sentries
which guard the entrance to the hive pitilessly put to death the robbing
bees which attempt entering the hive; but those stranger bees which come
to the hive by mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come
laden with pollen, or are young individuals which can easily go astray.
There is no more warfare than is strictly required.
The sociability of the bees is the more instructive as predatory
instincts and laziness continue to exist among the bees as well, and
reappear each time that their growth is favoured by some circumstances.
It is well known that there always are a number of bees which prefer a
life of robbery to the laborious life of a worker; and that both periods
of scarcity and periods of an unusually rich supply of food lead to an
increase of the robbing class. When our crops are in and there remains
but little to gather in our meadows and fields, robbing bees become of
more frequent occurrence; while, on the other side, about the sugar
plantations of the West Indies and the sugar refineries of Europe,
robbery, laziness, and very often drunkenness become quite usual with
the bees. We thus see that anti-social instincts continue to exist
amidst the bees as well; but natural selection continually must
eliminate them, because in the long run the practice of solidarity
proves much more advantageous to the species than the development of
individuals endowed with predatory inclinations. The cunningest and the
shrewdest are eliminated in favour of those who understand the
advantages of sociable life and mutual support.
Certainly, neither the ants, nor the bees, nor even the termites, have
risen to the conception of a higher solidarity embodying the whole of
the species. In that respect they evidently have not attained a degree
of development which we do not find even among our political,
scientific, and religious leaders. Their social instincts hardly extend
beyond the limits of the hive or the nest. However, colonies of no less
than two hundred nests, belonging to two different species (Formica
exsecta and F. pressilabris) have been described by Forel on Mount
Tendre and Mount Saleve; and Forel maintains that each member of these
colonies recognizes every other member of the colony, and that they all
take part in common defence; while in Pennsylvania Mr. MacCook saw a
whole nation of from 1,600 to 1,700 nests of the mound-making ant, all
living in perfect intelligence; and Mr. Bates has described the hillocks
of the termites covering large surfaces in the "campos"--some of the
nests being the refuge of two or three different species, and most of
them being connected by vaulted galleries or arcades.(10) Some steps
towards the amalgamation of larger divisions of the species for purposes
of mutual protection are thus met with even among the invertebrate
animals.
Going now over to higher animals, we find far more instances of
undoubtedly conscious mutual help for all possible purposes, though we
must recognize at once that our knowledge even of the life of higher
animals still remains very imperfect. A large number of facts have been
accumulated by first-rate observers, but there are whole divisions of
the animal kingdom of which we know almost nothing. Trustworthy
information as regards fishes is extremely scarce, partly owing to the
difficulties of observation, and partly because no proper attention has
yet been paid to the subject. As to the mammalia, Kessler already
remarked how little we know about their manners of life. Many of them
are nocturnal in their habits; others conceal themselves underground;
and those ruminants whose social life and migrations offer the greatest
interest do not let man approach their herds. It is chiefly upon birds
that we have the widest range of information, and yet the social life of
very many species remains but imperfectly known. Still, we need not
complain about the lack of well-ascertained facts, as will be seen from
the following.
I need not dwell upon the associations of male and female for rearing
their offspring, for providing it with food during their first steps in
life, or for hunting in common; though it may be mentioned by the way
that such associations are the rule even with the least sociable
carnivores and rapacious birds; and that they derive a special interest
from being the field upon which tenderer feelings develop even amidst
otherwise most cruel animals. It may also be added that the rarity of
associations larger than that of the family among the carnivores and the
birds of prey, though mostly being the result of their very modes of
feeding, can also be explained to some extent as a consequence of the
change produced in the animal world by the rapid increase of mankind. At
any rate it is worthy of note that there are species living a quite
isolated life in densely-inhabited regions, while the same species, or
their nearest congeners, are gregarious in uninhabited countries.
Wolves, foxes, and several birds of prey may be quoted as instances in
point.
However, associations which do not extend beyond the family bonds are of
relatively small importance in our case, the more so as we know numbers
of associations for more general purposes, such as hunting, mutual
protection, and even simple enjoyment of life. Audubon already mentioned
that eagles occasionally associate for hunting, and his description of
the two bald eagles, male and female, hunting on the Mississippi, is
well known for its graphic powers. But one of the most conclusive
observations of the kind belongs to Syevertsoff. Whilst studying the
fauna of the Russian Steppes, he once saw an eagle belonging to an
altogether gregarious species (the white-tailed eagle, Haliactos
albicilla) rising high in the air for half an hour it was describing its
wide circles in silence when at once its piercing voice was heard. Its
cry was soon answered by another eagle which approached it, and was
followed by a third, a fourth, and so on, till nine or ten eagles came
together and soon disappeared. In the afternoon, Syevertsoff went to the
place whereto he saw the eagles flying; concealed by one of the
undulations of the Steppe, he approached them, and discovered that they
had gathered around the corpse of a horse. The old ones, which, as a
rule, begin the meal first--such are their rules of propriety-already
were sitting upon the haystacks of the neighbourhood and kept watch,
while the younger ones were continuing the meal, surrounded by bands of
crows. From this and like observations, Syevertsoff concluded that the
white-tailed eagles combine for hunting; when they all have risen to a
great height they are enabled, if they are ten, to survey an area of at
least twenty-five miles square; and as soon as any one has discovered
something, he warns the others.(11) Of course, it might be argued that a
simple instinctive cry of the first eagle, or even its movements, would
have had the same effect of bringing several eagles to the prey. But in
this case there is strong evidence in favour of mutual warning, because
the ten eagles came together before descending towards the prey, and
Syevertsoff had later on several opportunities of ascertaining that the
whitetailed eagles always assemble for devouring a corpse, and that some
of them (the younger ones first) always keep watch while the others are
eating. In fact, the white-tailed eagle--one of the bravest and best
hunters--is a gregarious bird altogether, and Brehm says that when kept
in captivity it very soon contracts an attachment to its keepers.
Sociability is a common feature with very many other birds of prey. The
Brazilian kite, one of the most "impudent" robbers, is nevertheless a
most sociable bird. Its hunting associations have been described by
Darwin and other naturalists, and it is a fact that when it has seized
upon a prey which is too big, it calls together five or six friends to
carry it away. After a busy day, when these kites retire for their
night-rest to a tree or to the bushes, they always gather in bands,
sometimes coming together from distances of ten or more miles, and they
often are joined by several other vultures, especially the percnopters,
"their true friends," D'Orbigny says. In another continent, in the
Transcaspian deserts, they have, according to Zarudnyi, the same habit
of nesting together. The sociable vulture, one of the strongest
vultures, has received its very name from its love of society. They live
in numerous bands, and decidedly enjoy society; numbers of them join in
their high flights for sport. "They live in very good friendship," Le
Vaillant says, "and in the same cave I sometimes found as many as three
nests close together."(12) The Urubu vultures of Brazil are as, or
perhaps even more, sociable than rooks.(13) The little Egyptian vultures
live in close friendship. They play in bands in the air, they come
together to spend the night, and in the morning they all go together to
search for their food, and never does the slightest quarrel arise among
them; such is the testimony of Brehm, who had plenty of opportunities of
observing their life. The red-throated falcon is also met with in
numerous bands in the forests of Brazil, and the kestrel (Tinnunculus
cenchris), when it has left Europe, and has reached in the winter the
prairies and forests of Asia, gathers in numerous societies. In the
Steppes of South Russia it is (or rather was) so sociable that Nordmann
saw them in numerous bands, with other falcons (Falco tinnunculus, F.
oesulon, and F. subbuteo), coming together every fine afternoon about
four o'clock, and enjoying their sports till late in the night. They set
off flying, all at once, in a quite straight line, towards some
determined point, and, having reached it, immediately returned over the
same line, to repeat the same flight.(14)
To take flights in flocks for the mere pleasure of the flight, is quite
common among all sorts of birds. "In the Humber district especially,"
Ch. Dixon writes, "vast flights of dunlins often appear upon the
mud-flats towards the end of August, and remain for the winter.... The
movements of these birds are most interesting, as a vast flock wheels
and spreads out or closes up with as much precision as drilled troops.
Scattered among them are many odd stints and sanderlings and
ringed-plovers."(15)
It would be quite impossible to enumerate here the various hunting
associations of birds; but the fishing associations of the pelicans are
certainly worthy of notice for the remarkable order and intelligence
displayed by these clumsy birds. They always go fishing in numerous
bands, and after having chosen an appropriate bay, they form a wide
half-circle in face of the shore, and narrow it by paddling towards the
shore, catching all fish that happen to be enclosed in the circle. On
narrow rivers and canals they even divide into two parties, each of
which draws up on a half-circle, and both paddle to meet each other,
just as if two parties of men dragging two long nets should advance to
capture all fish taken between the nets when both parties come to meet.
As the night comes they fly to their resting-places--always the same for
each flock--and no one has ever seen them fighting for the possession of
either the bay or the resting place. In South America they gather in
flocks of from forty to fifty thousand individuals, part of which enjoy
sleep while the others keep watch, and others again go fishing.(16) And
finally, I should be doing an injustice to the much-calumniated
house-sparrows if I did not mention how faithfully each of them shares
any food it discovers with all members of the society to which it
belongs. The fact was known to the Greeks, and it has been transmitted
to posterity how a Greek orator once exclaimed (I quote from
memory):--"While I am speaking to you a sparrow has come to tell to
other sparrows that a slave has dropped on the floor a sack of corn, and
they all go there to feed upon the grain." The more, one is pleased to
find this observation of old confirmed in a recent little book by Mr.
Gurney, who does not doubt that the house sparrows always inform each
other as to where there is some food to steal; he says, "When a stack
has been thrashed ever so far from the yard, the sparrows in the yard
have always had their crops full of the grain."(17) True, the sparrows
are extremely particular in keeping their domains free from the
invasions of strangers; thus the sparrows of the Jardin du Luxembourg
bitterly fight all other sparrows which may attempt to enjoy their turn
of the garden and its visitors; but within their own communities they
fully practise mutual support, though occasionally there will be of
course some quarrelling even amongst the best friends.
Hunting and feeding in common is so much the habit in the feathered
world that more quotations hardly would be needful: it must be
considered as an established fact. As to the force derived from such
associations, it is self-evident. The strongest birds of prey are
powerless in face of the associations of our smallest bird pets. Even
eagles--even the powerful and terrible booted eagle, and the martial
eagle, which is strong enough to carry away a hare or a young antelope
in its claws--are compelled to abandon their prey to bands of those
beggars the kites, which give the eagle a regular chase as soon as they
see it in possession of a good prey. The kites will also give chase to
the swift fishing-hawk, and rob it of the fish it has captured; but no
one ever saw the kites fighting together for the possession of the prey
so stolen. On the Kerguelen Island, Dr. Coues saw the gulls to
Buphogus--the sea-hen of the sealers--pursue make them disgorge their
food, while, on the other side, the gulls and the terns combined to
drive away the sea-hen as soon as it came near to their abodes,
especially at nesting-time.(18) The little, but extremely swift lapwings
(Vanellus cristatus) boldly attack the birds of prey. "To see them
attacking a buzzard, a kite, a crow, or an eagle, is one of the most
amusing spectacles. One feels that they are sure of victory, and one
sees the anger of the bird of prey. In such circumstances they perfectly
support one another, and their courage grows with their numbers."(19)
The lapwing has well merited the name of a "good mother" which the
Greeks gave to it, for it never fails to protect other aquatic birds
from the attacks of their enemies. But even the little white wagtails
(Motacilla alba), whom we well know in our gardens and whose whole
length hardly attains eight inches, compel the sparrow-hawk to abandon
its hunt. "I often admired their courage and agility," the old Brehm
wrote, "and I am persuaded that the falcon alone is capable of capturing
any of them.... When a band of wagtails has compelled a bird of prey to
retreat, they make the air resound with their triumphant cries, and
after that they separate." They thus come together for the special
purpose of giving chase to their enemy, just as we see it when the whole
bird-population of a forest has been raised by the news that a nocturnal
bird has made its appearance during the day, and all together--birds of
prey and small inoffensive singers--set to chase the stranger and make
it return to its concealment.
What an immense difference between the force of a kite, a buzzard or a
hawk, and such small birds as the meadow-wagtail; and yet these little
birds, by their common action and courage, prove superior to the
powerfully-winged and armed robbers! In Europe, the wagtails not only
chase the birds of prey which might be dangerous to them, but they chase
also the fishing-hawk "rather for fun than for doing it any harm;" while
in India, according to Dr. Jerdon's testimony, the jackdaws chase the
gowinda-kite "for simple matter of amusement." Prince Wied saw the
Brazilian eagle urubitinga surrounded by numberless flocks of toucans
and cassiques (a bird nearly akin to our rook), which mocked it. "The
eagle," he adds, "usually supports these insults very quietly, but from
time to time it will catch one of these mockers." In all such cases the
little birds, though very much inferior in force to the bird of prey,
prove superior to it by their common action.(20)
However, the most striking effects of common life for the security of
the individual, for its enjoyment of life, and for the development of
its intellectual capacities, are seen in two great families of birds,
the cranes and the parrots. The cranes are extremely sociable and live
in most excellent relations, not only with their congeners, but also
with most aquatic birds. Their prudence is really astonishing, so also
their intelligence; they grasp the new conditions in a moment, and act
accordingly. Their sentries always keep watch around a flock which is
feeding or resting, and the hunters know well how difficult it is to
approach them. If man has succeeded in surprising them, they will never
return to the same place without having sent out one single scout first,
and a party of scouts afterwards; and when the reconnoitring party
returns and reports that there is no danger, a second group of scouts is
sent out to verify the first report, before the whole band moves. With
kindred species the cranes contract real friendship; and in captivity
there is no bird, save the also sociable and highly intelligent parrot,
which enters into such real friendship with man. "It sees in man, not a
master, but a friend, and endeavours to manifest it," Brehm concludes
from a wide personal experience. The crane is in continual activity from
early in the morning till late in the night; but it gives a few hours
only in the morning to the task of searching its food, chiefly
vegetable. All the remainder of the day is given to society life. "It
picks up small pieces of wood or small stones, throws them in the air
and tries to catch them; it bends its neck, opens its wings, dances,
jumps, runs about, and tries to manifest by all means its good
disposition of mind, and always it remains graceful and beautiful."(21)
As it lives in society it has almost no enemies, and though Brehm
occasionally saw one of them captured by a crocodile, he wrote that
except the crocodile he knew no enemies of the crane. It eschews all of
them by its proverbial prudence; and it attains, as a rule, a very old
age. No wonder that for the maintenance of the species the crane need
not rear a numerous offspring; it usually hatches but two eggs. As to
its superior intelligence, it is sufficient to say that all observers
are unanimous in recognizing that its intellectual capacities remind one
very much of those of man.
The other extremely sociable bird, the parrot, stands, as known, at the
very top of the whole feathered world for the development of its
intelligence. Brehm has so admirably summed up the manners of life of
the parrot, that I cannot do better than translate the following
sentence:--
"Except in the pairing season, they live in very numerous societies or
bands. They choose a place in the forest to stay there, and thence they
start every morning for their hunting expeditions. The members of each
band remain faithfully attached to each other, and they share in common
good or bad luck. All together they repair in the morning to a field, or
to a garden, or to a tree, to feed upon fruits. They post sentries to
keep watch over the safety of the whole band, and are attentive to their
warnings. In case of danger, all take to flight, mutually supporting
each other, and all simultaneously return to their resting-place. In a
word, they always live closely united."
They enjoy society of other birds as well. In India, the jays and crows
come together from many miles round, to spend the night in company with
the parrots in the bamboo thickets. When the parrots start hunting, they
display the most wonderful intelligence, prudence, and capacity of
coping with circumstances. Take, for instance, a band of white cacadoos
in Australia. Before starting to plunder a corn-field, they first send
out a reconnoitring party which occupies the highest trees in the
vicinity of the field, while other scouts perch upon the intermediate
trees between the field and the forest and transmit the signals. If the
report runs "All right," a score of cacadoos will separate from the bulk
of the band, take a flight in the air, and then fly towards the trees
nearest to the field. They also will scrutinize the neighbourhood for a
long while, and only then will they give the signal for general advance,
after which the whole band starts at once and plunders the field in no
time. The Australian settlers have the greatest difficulties in
beguiling the prudence of the parrots; but if man, with all his art and
weapons, has succeeded in killing some of them, the cacadoos become so
prudent and watchful that they henceforward baffle all stratagems.(22)
There can be no doubt that it is the practice of life in society which
enables the parrots to attain that very high level of almost human
intelligence and almost human feelings which we know in them. Their high
intelligence has induced the best naturalists to describe some species,
namely the grey parrot, as the "birdman." As to their mutual attachment
it is known that when a parrot has been killed by a hunter, the others
fly over the corpse of their comrade with shrieks of complaints and
"themselves fall the victims of their friendship," as Audubon said; and
when two captive parrots, though belonging to two different species,
have contracted mutual friendship, the accidental death of one of the
two friends has sometimes been followed by the death from grief and
sorrow of the other friend. It is no less evident that in their
societies they find infinitely more protection than they possibly might
find in any ideal development of beak and claw. Very few birds of prey
or mammals dare attack any but the smaller species of parrots, and Brehm
is absolutely right in saying of the parrots, as he also says of the
cranes and the sociable monkeys, that they hardly have any enemies
besides men; and he adds: "It is most probable that the larger parrots
succumb chiefly to old age rather than die from the claws of any
enemies." Only man, owing to his still more superior intelligence and
weapons, also derived from association, succeeds in partially destroying
them. Their very longevity would thus appear as a result of their social
life. Could we not say the same as regards their wonderful memory, which
also must be favoured in its development by society--life and by
longevity accompanied by a full enjoyment of bodily and mental faculties
till a very old age?
As seen from the above, the war of each against all is not the law of
nature. Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle, and
that law will become still more apparent when we have analyzed some
other associations of birds and those of the mammalia. A few hints as to
the importance of the law of mutual aid for the evolution of the animal
kingdom have already been given in the preceding pages; but their
purport will still better appear when, after having given a few more
illustrations, we shall be enabled presently to draw therefrom our
conclusions.
NOTES:
1. Origin of Species, chap. iii, p. 62 of first edition.
2. Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1888, p. 165.
3. Leaving aside the pre-Darwinian writers, like Toussenel, Fee, and
many others, several works containing many striking instances of mutual
aid--chiefly, however, illustrating animal intelligence were issued
previously to that date. I may mention those of Houzeau, Les facultes
etales des animaux, 2 vols., Brussels, 1872; L. Buchner's Aus dem
Geistesleben der Thiere, 2nd ed. in 1877; and Maximilian Perty's Ueber
das Seelenleben der Thiere, Leipzig, 1876. Espinas published his most
remarkable work, Les Societes animales, in 1877, and in that work he
pointed out the importance of animal societies, and their bearing upon
the preservation of species, and entered upon a most valuable discussion
of the origin of societies. In fact, Espinas's book contains all that
has been written since upon mutual aid, and many good things besides. If
I nevertheless make a special mention of Kessler's address, it is
because he raised mutual aid to the height of a law much more important
in evolution than the law of mutual struggle. The same ideas were
developed next year (in April 1881) by J. Lanessan in a lecture
published in 1882 under this title: La lutte pour l'existence et
l'association pour la lutte. G. Romanes's capital work, Animal
Intelligence, was issued in 1882, and followed next year by the Mental
Evolution in Animals. About the same time (1883), Buchner published
another work, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt, a second edition
of which was issued in 1885. The idea, as seen, was in the air.
4. Memoirs (Trudy) of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, vol.
xi. 1880.
5. George J. Romanes's Animal Intelligence, 1st ed. p. 233.
6. Pierre Huber's Les fourmis indigees, Geneve, 1861; Forel's Recherches
sur les fourmis de la Suisse, Zurich, 1874, and J.T. Moggridge's
Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor Spiders, London, 1873 and 1874, ought to be
in the hands of every boy and girl. See also: Blanchard's Metamorphoses
des Insectes, Paris, 1868; J.H. Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris,
1886; Ebrard's Etudes des moeurs des fourmis, Geneve, 1864; Sir John
Lubbock's Ants, Bees, and Wasps, and so on.
7. Forel's Recherches, pp. 244, 275, 278. Huber's description of the
process is admirable. It also contains a hint as to the possible origin
of the instinct (popular edition, pp. 158, 160). See Appendix II.
8. The agriculture of the ants is so wonderful that for a long time it
has been doubted. The fact is now so well proved by Mr. Moggridge, Dr.
Lincecum, Mr. MacCook, Col. Sykes, and Dr. Jerdon, that no doubt is
possible. See an excellent summary of evidence in Mr. Romanes's work.
See also Die Pilzgaerten einiger Sud-Amerikanischen Ameisen, by Alf.
Moeller, in Schimper's Botan. Mitth. aus den Tropen, vi. 1893.
9. This second principle was not recognized at once. Former observers
often spoke of kings, queens, managers, and so on; but since Huber and
Forel have published their minute observations, no doubt is possible as
to the free scope left for every individual's initiative in whatever the
ants do, including their wars.
10. H.W. Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 59 seq.
11. N. Syevertsoff, Periodical Phenomena in the Life of Mammalia, Birds,
and Reptiles of Voroneje, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian).
12. A. Brehm, Life of Animals, iii. 477; all quotations after the French
edition.
13. Bates, p. 151.
14. Catalogue raisonne des oiseaux de la faune pontique, in Demidoff's
Voyage; abstracts in Brehm, iii. 360. During their migrations birds of
prey often associate. One flock, which H. Seebohm saw crossing the
Pyrenees, represented a curious assemblage of "eight kites, one crane,
and a peregrine falcon" (The Birds of Siberia, 1901, p. 417).
15. Birds in the Northern Shires, p. 207.
16. Max. Perty, Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere (Leipzig, 1876), pp.
87, 103.
17. G. H. Gurney, The House-Sparrow (London, 1885), p. 5.
18. Dr. Elliot Coues, Birds of the Kerguelen Island, in Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections, vol. xiii. No. 2, p. 11.
19. Brehm, iv. 567.
20. As to the house-sparrows, a New Zealand observer, Mr. T.W. Kirk,
described as follows the attack of these "impudent" birds upon an
"unfortunate" hawk.--"He heard one day a most unusual noise, as though
all the small birds of the country had joined in one grand quarrel.
Looking up, he saw a large hawk (C. gouldi--a carrion feeder) being
buffeted by a flock of sparrows. They kept dashing at him in scores, and
from all points at once. The unfortunate hawk was quite powerless. At
last, approaching some scrub, the hawk dashed into it and remained
there, while the sparrows congregated in groups round the bush, keeping
up a constant chattering and noise" (Paper read before the New Zealand
Institute; Nature, Oct. 10, 1891).
21. Brehm, iv. 671 seq.
22. R. Lendenfeld, in Der zoologische Garten, 1889.