occur, as well as social forms like the bumblebees where colonies are
formed in a single season only to break up with the advent of cold
weather. The honeybees, however, establish permanent communities from
which swarms may set out during the warm months to become new colonies
elsewhere. Many hundreds of bees make up a hive, and they belong to three
classes or castes, which differ in structure and social function. The
queen is a fertile female, the drones are males, and the workers are
stunted and infertile females which take no part in reproduction. In this
case the queen never discharges any menial duties, for these are attended
to by the workers; she devotes her entire time to laying eggs, which are
cared for by her subjects, who act as nurses and guards for the monarch as
well. The young workers serve at first as doorkeepers, and only later do
they take the field in the search for nectar and pollen, and work as
house-builders. Each individual performs its special task for its own
benefit and for the weal of all; each possesses an equal right to share in
the prosperity of the whole community so long as it acts altruistically as
well as egoistically. And just as the welfare of _Hydra_ is superior to
that of any one of its constituent cells, so the well-being of a hive of
bees may be safeguarded only by the actual sacrifice of some of its
members. Should food supplies be inadequate, the superfluous drones are
stung to death,--the victims of legalized murder. But more marvelous still
is the provision that is said to be made by certain individuals for their
own destruction should this become desirable. As every one knows, a
reigning queen may leave the hive with many of her subjects and "swarm" in
a new locality. When she does this, during the warm months, the workers of
the original hive feed some of the female larvæ with richer food, and
place these potential queens or princesses in special roomy cells apart
from the ordinary brood chambers; one of them soon emerges to become a new
sovereign. Let us note in passing how similar this is to the production of
new egg-cells in a _Hydra_, when the mature germs of an earlier generation
are prepared and discharged. When, now, the colder weather sets in, and
the possibility of subsequent swarming is set aside, the reigning queen is
allowed by her attendant guards to visit the royal cells, whose occupants
she stings to death, thus destroying any possible claimant to her place.
And when the royal princess constructs her part of the pupal case, she
leaves an aperture so that if and when it should become necessary for the
queen to kill her, the sovereign would not injure her sting and be unable
to kill the other individuals who might become aspirants for the throne
and so precipitate a civil war! As in the case of the self-destructive act
on the part of a stinging cell in _Hydra_, altruistic subservience to the
interests of the colony can go no farther.
The ants form stable colonies of still higher grades, where the workers
are not all alike in general structure, but become more rigidly
specialized for the performance of restricted tasks. As before, there is
the fundamental differentiation into the sexual "queens" and males, and
the sterile workers concerned with the immediate material life of the
community. In some species the workers serve as herdsmen, caring for the
ant-cattle or aphids, from which they receive minute drops of a sweet
juice for food. The aphids are tended on the leaves of various plants
during the summer, and are carefully reared and stabled and fed below
ground during the winter months. In other species seeds are procured and
stored in underground granaries. The leaf-cutters are forms which grow
food supplies of fungi in subterranean mushroom gardens; the compost
consists of cuttings brought from the leaves of bushes by myriads of
workers, whose processions are guarded by larger-headed soldiers of
several ranks. In the honey-ants of Colorado and tropical America certain
individuals pass their time suspended from the roof of a large
nest-chamber, where they receive the sweet juice brought in by the workers.
They serve as animated preserve jars, distended sometimes to the size of a
grape with the communal stores of food, which they return to the workers
when external sources of food may fail. Finally there are the slaveholding
species which conduct forays upon the nests of other forms, to procure the
young of the latter, which grow up in their captors' nests and serve them
as nurses and masons and foragers. So long has this custom been
established that some slaveholders are entirely unable to feed themselves,
and would die out if their slaves failed to support them.
* * * * *
Let us pause at this point to summarize the results of the foregoing
analysis, in order that we may approach the biological study of human
associations with definite and clear conceptions of the fundamental laws
controlling living communities of all grades.
We have dealt mainly with _Amoeba_, _Hydra_, and the ant-community
which exemplify three somewhat distinct types of organic individuality.
Some of the transitional forms have been specified to show how the second
kind originates from the first, and how in its turn this grows in time
into the third and most complex association; thus _Vorticella_ and
_Volvox_ connect _Amoeba_ with the cell-community individual like
_Hydra_ and a solitary wasp, while the annually established colonies of
social wasps and of bumblebees lead to the permanent colony-individual.
Restricting attention to the three primary examples, and remembering that
the criterion of completeness is the ability to discharge satisfactorily
all of the eight biological tasks, it is clear that the entire _Hydra_ and
the whole ant-community correspond _physiologically_ with _Amoeba_,
although the first-named is _structurally_ a cell-community equivalent to
many protozoa, and the insect colony is composed of many such
cell-communities as elements. In the third type, neither a single queen
nor a single worker is able to carry on all of the biological tasks any
more than a muscle-cell or an unformed egg of _Hydra_ can maintain itself
capably in isolation. Therefore the ant-society as a whole and the _Hydra_
in its entirety are organic individuals on the same physiological plane
with _Amoeba_, and they are equally subject to the same great laws of
nature demanding selfish maintenance and racial perpetuation.
But we must not lose sight of the fundamental value of the unit during the
evolution of a higher from a lower type. The tissue-cell of _Hydra_ must
still obey the mandate to live an efficient personal life, because this is
necessary for the welfare of other cells and of the whole complex. The
original egoistic tasks are not abolished, but new duties are added to
them in ways we have learned to distinguish. In _Vorticella_ the products
of fission do not separate, and certain advantages accrue from the organic
continuity thus maintained. The success of _Hydra_ in its ceaseless
struggle to live depends wholly upon the cooperation of its differentiated
cell-units, now no longer equivalent in function to the all-powerful
_Amoeba_, although each one must be kept alive until its task is done,
or the whole association would have no place in nature. Similarly in the
higher insect community, the superadded duties to fellow-components are
even clearer, for in the competition of colony with colony, involving
terrific battles whose casualties may be numbered by thousands, the
stronger wins; and strength depends upon the concerted efforts of all the
members of the kingdom, that only collectively constitute a complete
biological whole. Mere self-protection demands altruistic conduct: if the
worker ceased to bring in food when its own hunger was satisfied, there
would be no tribal stores for the stay-at-home queens and nurses; and if
the soldier fled from the field of battle to save its own life, its act
would be suicidal ultimately, for to the degree of one unit the defense of
its non-military supporters would be weakened and they would be so much
the less unprotected during their service for the soldiers and all others.
Furthermore, we must admit the reality of natural criteria of ethical
values, established far below mankind in the scale of life. In an
ant-republic, laws are instinctively obeyed quite as implicitly as though
they were intelligibly proclaimed to all of the emmet citizens. Right is
might when community battles with community, for right is that which is
biologically favorable. And what may be correct conduct on the part of the
members of one species may be naturally wrong and evil in another case. To
kill the princesses in order to obviate the possibility of civil war seems
advantageous and therefore right when the queen remains in the persistent
colony of honeybees, ready to do her part the following spring; but it
might result in disaster and evil in the case of the social wasps, where
the community dies as such in the fall, and the continuity of the species
from one year to another requires the production of many queens lest the
severe conditions of the winter's hibernation should kill all fertile
females if only one or two were available. The standards of conduct are
simple indeed; and whether or not it may seem best to separate the
processes of social and ethical evolution culminating in human phenomena,
the fact remains that these processes begin with elements discovered by
the biologist among organisms of the lower levels in the scale.
* * * * *
We come at length to the biological interpretation of human social
evolution, in so far as this may be expounded in a simple and concise
form. The comparative method must be employed in order to discover the
fundamental attributes of savage, barbarous, and civilized communities
which seem to differ so considerably in their complexity of social
structure, and in order also to show that such basic elements are like
those of communities formed by lower animals, and are equally the products
of natural evolution. This whole subject seems to be exceedingly complex,
because in our daily contact with others of our kind and in our occasional
views of foreign races like our own, the smaller details occupy our
attention, diverting it from the great basic principles according to which
every society is organized and operates. But when once the major elements
have been discovered in civilized and more primitive nations, the
secondary and less essential phenomena fall into their proper relations,
and a statement of the whole process of development becomes relatively
simple. So much space has been devoted to lower types of communal
organisms in order to learn what the fundamentals are, and not merely to
provide analogies that may be useful hereafter. It now remains to arrange
the evidences of social progress during the history of mankind itself, and
to bring such human facts into relation with what has been discovered in
lower nature. It is helpful to begin this part of the subject by asking
ourselves what is already part of common knowledge about human history. Do
we know of any civilized nation that is absolutely stable and unvarying in
social structure, or one that has remained unchanged throughout historic
time? The answer must be negative, for in no case does the past disclose
an example of permanence in social or in any other respect; monarchies and
republics are plastic like the human frame itself. The American
Commonwealth is a relatively young social organism, and it is an easy task
to trace its growth from beginnings in the diffuse and uncorrelated
colonies of pre-Revolutionary years. Those colonies that were formed by
English settlers were transplanted outgrowths from a civilized social
parent which in its turn had clearly evolved from the state of King John's
time and the still cruder form it had under King Alfred.
Should we follow back the recorded history of any people now civilized, we
would always find evidence of ceaseless change; and the writings of
ancient historians like Herodotus and Cæsar and Tacitus give a great deal
of information about the barbarous conditions from which civilization
evolved.
But much more is known that materially amplifies the account of human
progress based upon documents alone. The student of existing human races
early learns that social structure is a very varied thing. The natives of
northern Africa now live in a semi-civilized state which is very like that
of medieval England. In Siberia and the American Southwest are tribes that
correspond socially with the barbarians of Europe described by Greek and
Roman writers. The American Indians discovered by the earliest colonists,
the Polynesians of a century ago, and the Fuegians of recent decades
provide counterparts of the ancient stone-wielding people who were the
savage ancestors of European barbarians. Hence the comparative study and
classification of modern races establishes a scale of social grades which
corresponds with the order of their historic succession, just as in a
larger way the complete series of comparative anatomy from _Amoeba_ to
man displays the order of evolution from unicellular beginnings to the
present culminating types. Savagery, barbarism, and civilization are the
three major terms of this social scale, but by no means are they
discontinuous, for many intermediate forms of organization occur which are
transitional from one major type to a higher one.
In human social evolution the starting point is not so simple as the
solitary unit from which insect societies evolved,--that is, an organism
which lives alone and is associated with another of its species only at
the time of mating. The lowest human beings now existing have some form of
family organization, traceable to the more or less continuous unions
formed among certain of the apes and even among many lower animals, and
not a characteristic that belongs to mankind alone. The savage and his
mate constitute the social unit out of which all else is built up; the man
and the woman must perform all of the vital tasks demanded by nature.
Fruits and vegetables must be secured from the wild forest or by
cultivation; the flesh of game animals or of a human victim is no less
essential for food. The savage is his own weapon maker and warrior; he
himself builds the rude shelter for his family and fashions the canoe if
such is required. He is also his own judge, recognizing no control save
the dictates of his wishes and needs, for he does not consciously realize
that he must obey the primal commands of nature to preserve himself and
his family so that the species shall persist. In brief, the elementary
family unit carries on all of the individual biological tasks of foraging,
righting, home-building, and the like, and it also discharges the racial
task of multiplying, quite as instinctively as it provides for its own
maintenance.
By the union of several families, a primitive association arises, like
that of the Veddahs in Ceylon. The primal duties of each family are
unchanged, and their biological activities are identical, as in the
protozoön colony of _Vorticella_ or in a pack of wolves; but certain new
relations are established. A member of such an inchoate tribe must not
treat his confrères as he might a man of another group; robbery and murder
within the limits of the small association are detrimental to communal
interests, though they may remain unchecked if the victims are strangers.
Coöperation for mutual offense and defense makes the group stronger than
its constituent family units taken singly, and every man of such a tribe
gains something by looking out for others as well as for himself. By
natural selection alone the bonds of union would be strengthened in direct
proportion to the subordination of individual interest to group welfare,
and to the amount of altruistic action that in a true sense grows out of
purely selfish conduct.
But when such a primitive biological association forms and grows, an
opportunity arises for increasing the effectiveness of the whole group by
differentiation. Some of the men are stronger in battle and they soon
become the chief warriors; others prove to be more skilful in the hunt or
in the construction of canoes and weapons. Just as among the insects, the
hunter seeks food not only for himself but for the warriors, who in their
turn defend themselves, but do not cease fighting when they have disposed
of their own enemies if foes of their comrades still survive. The
barbarous state of society thus arises, and the division of labor brought
about during its origin makes it possible and indeed essential for many
family units to remain together for mutual good. The union is stable and
efficient, however, only if the individual suppresses his own selfish
inclinations, suspending private quarrels when public wars are toward, and
acting at all times in concert with his fellows. Self-control increases
necessarily, and lines of conduct deemed right by a solitary savage unit
come more and more under the sway of social inhibition, for although the
primitive savages must inhibit individualistic action to some degree, the
barbarian must suppress much more of his purely personal wishes for the
purpose of social solidarity. Thus it comes about that a barbarous
community can number thousands, while a tribe of savages with a higher
degree of individualism and less altruism cannot cohere if it comprises
more than hundreds or scores.
Civilization is a product of evolution by precisely the same natural mode
of development, that is, through further subordination of individual to
communal interests and through progressive dividing up of the tasks
necessary for the life of the group. The final result is so obvious and
familiar that we take it for granted, accepting it as self-sufficient
without realizing how it has come about and how modern is the present
state of affairs. Let us compare the life of an Indian savage living on
Manhattan Island four centuries ago with that of a New Yorker to-day, as
regards so simple a matter as the procuring of fish food. The Indian
emerged from his tepee, built by himself, and walking to the shore,
stepped into a canoe which also he had made with his own hands. Paddling
to the fishing ground, he patiently cast his line until the desired fish
were caught. Does any one of us do all of these things for himself? We
live in houses constructed for us by others who devote their lives to
building; we are very apt to go about the city in conveyances that demand
special and peculiar skill for their invention, manufacture, and
operation. Arriving at a market-place, we obtain such an article of food
as a fish without having to go out upon the water ourselves, for many
other workers have built vessels that we do not know how to make and may
not know how to handle, and hundreds of fishermen devote their lives to
their special task, not for themselves, but for us and all others, such as
the builder, the subway operator, the boat maker, and the manufacturers
who supply their clothing and apparatus.
What has come about then is a higher degree of specialization in the
performance of the fundamental biological tasks, resulting in the
formation of coherent and efficient groups comprising millions as compared
with the thousands of barbarism and the hundreds of savagery. Just so the
communities of insects with the greatest degree of altruism and division
of labor far exceed in numbers the small colonies of the social wasps with
lower social differentiation.
But the great biological functions of an entire complex civilized society
remain the same as those of a primitive savage family unit, of an insect
community, of _Hydra_, and of _Amoeba_. Let any nation fail to maintain
itself in material individual respects, it must inevitably die out; in the
islands of the South Seas many a tragic death-struggle of a people can be
witnessed. If in the second place a nation should concern itself too
greatly with the material benefits of human life without obeying the
natural mandate to propagate itself, its place in the scheme of things
becomes insecure, as in the case of the French Republic. Natural social
laws that go back to _Amoeba_ must be observed, consciously or
unconsciously, or else even the civilized community must fall, like scores
and hundreds of others that lie along the road of historic progress--a
road strewn with the remains of the unfit thrown out by natural selection.
What now are the lessons of social evolution and what guidance does
science give for human endeavor? Although it may seem that the biologist
leaves his field when he considers these questions, his duty would be
unfulfilled if he neglected an opportunity to give his results their
highest utility through their use for the betterment of human life.
The first lesson is that the history of human social organization is far
from unique, and that it is identical with the process by which insect
communities and cell-aggregates have evolved; in a word, the laws of
biological association are uniform throughout the entire organic scale. In
some respects evolution in mankind has yet to equal the heights attained
by some insects, inasmuch as no human society has accomplished so rigid a
specialization of its members that a given individual is foreordained by
its inherited structure to be a particular kind of worker and nothing
else. Furthermore, evolution in human society is still far short of a
state where some and some only are reproductive members of the group while
the others are necessarily sterile; social insects with stable colonies
are so organized that the queens and drones are solely reproductive while
the workers are destined to care for the material wants of the colony. It
is true that the birth-rate is by no means the same in all classes of
society, but the social and other adventitious restrictions that bring
this about are not on the same plane with the hereditary determining
factors which operate among insects. Therefore the scale of human
communities proves to be only a part of the wider range of organic
associations in general--a part which can be definitely placed in such a
wider scheme and so become more intelligible in itself.
In all departments of social evolution, progress is made by the twofold
process of combination and differentiation. We have dealt with detailed
instances, and now it is profitable to treat the process in a larger way,
with a view toward the possibilities of the future. The Thirteen Colonies,
somewhat similar in their earlier economic activities, united for mutual
support much as wolves combine to form a pack. Later, as circumstances
directed, they differentiated into farming or manufacturing or commercial
organs of the body politic, each to some degree freeing itself of the
functions undertaken by others, and becoming thereby more dependent than
before upon those that specialized in different ways. As in the history of
the insects in a growing wasp community and of savages evolving into
barbarians, the original condition of relative independence passed into a
state of interdependence and cooperation. In like manner, if nature
remains the same, as there is every reason to believe it will, nations now
separate will unite to make more complex combinations that will be
veritable empires of world-wide scope. Countries on opposite sides of an
ocean are now more closely connected by lines of communication and means
of travel than were the Carolinas and New England a century ago.
Diplomatic activities give many signs of a growing appreciation of the
value of reciprocal agreements for mutual advantage, and the Hague
Conference is a concrete manifestation of a continuing process of social
evolution that finds its beginnings and its interpretation far below human
history in lower organic nature.