SOME POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL ANIMALS
I
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE
Problem of the species in the human race—Loss
of individuality in the associations of lower
animals—Myxomycetes and Siphonophora—Individuality in
Ascidians—Progress in the development of the individual
living in a society
In the following pages I shall try to reply to the criticism on _The
Nature of Man_ that in that book I only considered the individual
without thinking of the interests of society or of the race. I have
been reproached for having lost sight of the truth that in the general
course of evolution the interests of the individual must yield to the
higher interests of the community. It was asserted, in fact, that by
advising orthobiosis, that is to say, the most complete cycle of human
life, ending in extreme old age, I was suggesting something to the
detriment of humanity as a whole.
This objection rests on a misunderstanding which it will be interesting
to clear up. I think that the complete development of the individual
not only would not injure the community but would be of great advantage
to it. Moreover, we must not lose sight of the fact that the individual
has rights which must not be ignored.
In the attack on my theory many facts were brought forward which show
that in the animal and vegetable kingdoms the individual is always
sacrificed to the advantage of the race. There is no doubt as to this,
and in the course of this book I have given exact facts bearing on it.
I instanced plants such as the Agave and some Cryptogams which die as
soon as they have reproduced; I have also spoken of the small female
round worms (_Nematoda_) which are brutally torn in pieces and devoured
by their progeny. It would be difficult to find better cases of the
sacrifice of the individual to the species. The rule, however, does not
apply to man, who, in this respect, stands in a special position.
Since the arrival of man, several species of animals have disappeared
from the earth. Man has played a large part in the destruction of the
Moa (_Aepyornis_) of Madagascar, the largest member of the class of
birds. He destroyed the Dodo of the Island of Mauritius and Steller’s
sea cow (_Rhytina stelleri_), a harmless relative of the Manatee, from
the shores of the Aleutian Archipelago. Man is about to cause the
extinction of several species of harmful carnivorous animals, such
as the wolf and the bear, and possibly it will not be long before
automobiles have replaced the horse, which would then become extremely
rare. However, although he has destroyed so many other species, man has
taken good care of himself. The progress already made by civilisation
has considerably reduced our mortality. Every year, a large number
of young infants are kept alive by the aid of hygiene and medicine.
The decrease of war and of assassination has also played a part in
maintaining the race. The position which man has acquired in the world
makes it more likely that what we have to fear is too great an increase
of population, and although the theory of Malthus has not been
verified in all its details, it is still true that man could multiply
on the face of the earth too abundantly. It is already clear that
almost in the proportion that humanity stops the effusion of its blood
in war, it tends to limit the propagation of the race.
As the future of the species seems to be safe, it is natural to
consider in the first place that of the individual. In this respect the
facts of general biology are of special interest.
Man is not the only social animal on the earth. Long before his
appearance other living beings existed in organised societies.
The splendid colonies of Siphonophora float on the surface of the
seas, whilst in the ocean depths there are societies of corals of
extraordinary variability, whilst again, on land, many kinds of insects
live in highly organised societies.
This social life has been developed without external assistance, and
without any code to regulate the conduct of the individuals united for
a common purpose.
It will be interesting to give a slight survey of the fundamental
principles of such societies; I intend to draw special attention to
one of the essential points in the societies of animals, hoping to
elucidate the relations between the individuals and society.
In the organisation of human society the most difficult points are
the extent to which the society may encroach on the individual and
the degree to which the individual may preserve his rights and his
independence. Disputes on these have been interminable, and I do not
propose to discuss the theories according to which an individual must
be sacrificed for the good of the community to which he belongs.
I shall limit myself to reviewing the fate of the individuals in
societies of beings much inferior to man.
There are examples of societies composed of many individuals, even
amongst living things on the borderland between the animal and
vegetable kingdoms.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—Isolated individuals of a Myxomycete.
(After Zopff.)
_a_, spore; _b-f_, escape of the zoospores.]
[Illustration: FIG. 22.—Myxomycete individuals united to form a
plasmodium.
(After Zopff.)]
There may be found in woods, on dead leaves or on decaying timber,
minute plants resembling tiny mushrooms. These are Myxomycetes, and
the visible portions are minute sacs filled with microscopical rounded
bodies, known as spores. When one of the spores is moistened, there
emerges a minute organism with a mobile appendage by which it can be
impelled through water. A drop of water on a leaf or on a fragment of
timber may be filled with numbers of these tiny swimming bodies (Fig.
21). Their free life as individuals, however, is of brief duration.
When they come into contact, their bodies fuse, forming a gelatinous
mass which may be quite large (Fig. 22). This mass is called a
plasmodium, and is composed of a living substance which can move slowly
over leaves and which exhibits streaming movements in the interior, so
that the whole resembles in some respects the lava from a volcano.
The plasmodia may be regarded as societies in the constitution of which
the individuality of the members has been completely sacrificed. The
ideal of those philosophers who have urged that man should renounce
his individuality and merge himself in the community has been realised
in the fullest way at the lower end of the scale of life, at an epoch
inconceivably remote from the appearance of the human race.
Amongst animals, even the most lowly, there are no societies in which
the members are sacrificed so completely to the whole. Individuality
is always preserved to a greater or lesser extent. Consider the
polyps, colonies of which form reefs in the sea and may even become
islands. These creatures live in aggregations, the members of which
are incapable of living an independent life. They are united by living
substance and resemble double monsters, such as Doodica and Radica, who
were so much talked of some years ago when M. Doyen operated upon them.
The peritoneal cavities of these twins were in free communication,
and the blood-vessels were united so that the blood of the one passed
freely into the body of the other. In another double monster, the two
Tscheck girls, Rosa and Josepha, the intestinal tracts communicate,
both leading to a common rectum. In these, who are still alive, the
peritoneum is joined and there is a single urethra.
In the case of the coral polyps, the fusion of the individuals of the
colony is nearly always much more complete. Each individual has its
own mouth and stomach, whilst the other organs cannot be assigned to
individuals but must be regarded as common to the whole.
In the swimming polyps or Siphonophora, the loss of individuality
is still more remarkable. These graceful and transparent creatures,
sometimes large in size, live in the sea and may appear on its
surface in great numbers. They possess many whip-like filaments
provided with tentacles, swimming bells and stomachs. There can be
no doubt as to their colonial nature (Fig. 23), but it is difficult
to decide as to whether each piece of the colony, each swimming
bell, stomach and so forth, is to be regarded as an individual or
an organ, different zoologists having taken different views on the
question. One interpretation is that colonial life has brought with
it such modifications that of each individual there remains only a
single organ. Some individuals have been reduced to simple stomachs,
attached to the central stem, whilst others have lost all organs
except that of locomotion which has become one of the swimming bells
of the colony. Other zoologists, and I myself amongst them, think
that the Siphonophora are colonies of organs in which there has been
as yet practically no development of individuality. A living chain of
Siphonophora is simply a number of organs such as stomachs, tentacles,
swimming bells and so forth, united on a common stem. I need not
discuss the disputed point further, for the only matter pertinent to
my argument is that in the Siphonophora the loss of individuality,
the sacrifice of the parts to the whole, is not so great as in the
Myxomycetes.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—One of the Siphonophora.
(After Chun.)
_pn_, pneumatic chamber; _clh_, swimming bells; _stl_, stolon.]
In support of my view, I must recall the small forms of Siphonophora
known as _Eudoxia_. These are detached pieces of the common trunk
which swim freely in the sea and have a remarkable structure (Fig.
24). Their mobility is due to a bell provided with strong muscular
fibres. The bell is a portion of an individual which possesses organs
of reproduction but which is devoid of the means to capture or digest
food. These two functions are performed by a second individual which
is closely united with the first. The nutrient individual has a long
tentacle by which the prey is captured, and a capacious stomach in
which it is digested. The products of digestion pass by channels into
the reproductive individual, carrying as it were a ready-made blood.
_Eudoxia_ in fact is a double being composed of an individual incapable
of locomotion or of reproduction, but adapted for prehension and
digestion, and of a second individual which can reproduce and which is
mobile. _Eudoxia_ is an association resembling that of the blind man
and the paralytic, in Florian’s fable.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—_Eudoxia._
(After Chun.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—_Botryllus_ colonies.
_o_, mouth ; _A_, common cloaca.]
Advance in the organisation of social animals is plainly incompatible
with complete loss of individuality, and this becomes the more apparent
the higher we reach in the scale of life. In the social Ascidians,
each member retains all the organs necessary to life. Animals of the
genus _Botryllus_ (Fig. 25), perhaps the most interesting of these
Ascidians, occur in the form of circular colonies. The individuals
which compose the colony are grouped radially around a common centre
which is occupied by the cloaca. Each individual has its own mouth
and digestive tube, but the latter opens into a cloaca, common to all
the individuals, by which the excreta are voided. There is, in fact,
a single anus, as in the case of Rosa and Josepha which I have just
mentioned.
II
INSECT SOCIETIES
Social life of insects—Development and preservation of
individuality in colonies of insects—Division of labour
and sacrifice of individuality in some insects
Hitherto I have dealt with associations of animals the members of
which are linked by an actual material bond. In the insect world there
are many cases of highly developed colonies. But the organisation of
insects is high, and is incompatible with the existence of actual
physical connection between the members of the society.
In early stages of the development of the social instinct in bees,
fully formed and similar individuals join together with the object
of securing the safety of their individual lives. Sometimes they act
together to drive away a common enemy, sometimes, as in winter, they
cling in a mass to maintain their temperature. In such primitive
societies, the young are not reared in common. It is only in much more
highly developed colonies, such as those of some bees and wasps, and of
ants and termites, that the chief object of the common action is care
of the progeny. Such an extreme development of the colony is attained
only by sacrificing the individuality of the members. There is a
far-reaching division of labour, so that the queens, for instance, are
mere machines for laying eggs. In hive-bees the queen can no longer
judge of what is good for the colony, her intellectual functions being
degenerate. She is enclosed in her cell and supported by the workers,
who see in her the future of the race. In times of want the worker-bees
sacrifice their own lives and give the queen the last remnants of
the food-supply so that she survives them. The males are incomplete
individuals and are tolerated only so long as they are required, after
which the workers kill them remorselessly.
The workers, which take such pains for the well-being of the hive,
are incomplete individuals. Their brains are well developed and they
are well equipped with organs for making wax and collecting food, but
their reproductive organs are reduced to mere vestiges incapable of
fulfilling their functions.
Here then is a case of loss of individual characters increasing with
the perfection of the colony. Amongst ants and termites, the social
life of which arose quite independently of that of bees, the same
course of events has been repeated. High intelligence and skill
are confined to the workers, in which the reproductive organs are
atrophied. The soldiers have powerful jaws used in defence of the camp,
but they, too, are sexually incomplete. The females and males, in which
the reproductive organs have attained huge proportions so that the
bodies are little more than sacs containing the sexual elements, have
no intelligence and very little skill.
An extremely curious specialisation, consisting in the formation of
honey-bearing workers, occurs in some Mexican ants. Some of the workers
of these races absorb so much honey that their bodies become swollen
honey-bags. The limbs can no longer support the expanded body, and the
insects, reduced to immobility, do not quit the burrows. Normal life
has become impossible for these individuals, who soon die for the good
of the community. When the normal workers or the sexual individuals
are hungry, they approach the honey-bearers and take honey from their
mouths. The honey-bearers have become no more than animated cupboards
(Fig. 26).
[Illustration: FIG. 26.—A Honey-ant.
(After Brehm.)]
The termites belong to quite another class of the group Insecta, but
in their case a similar sacrifice of the individual to the state
is practised. The females become transformed to shapeless bags of
eggs. They cannot move, but remain secluded in the recesses of the
“ant”-hill, where they lay as many as 80,000 eggs a day. The soldiers
have become provided with jaws so enormous that these unsexed insects
can perform no function other than defence of the colony.
The partial reduction of individuality in social insects never goes
so far as in the cases of the lower animals I have described. It
may be stated as a general rule that increase in the perfection of
organisation brings with it a more or less complete preservation of
individuality in the members of a community.
I shall now examine to what extent this law can be applied in the case
of man.
III
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE HUMAN RACE
Human societies—Differentiation in the human
race—Learned women—Habits of a bee, _Halictus
quadricinctus_—Collectivist theories—Criticisms by
Herbert Spencer and Nietzsche—Progress of individuality
in the societies of higher beings
Social life is for the most part little developed amongst vertebrate
animals. The birds and fishes which live in communities present no
organisation of society even comparable with that found amongst
insects. There is little advance in this respect in the case of
mammals, and it is not until we come to man that highly organised
societies are to be found. Man is the first vertebrate to develop an
organised social life. But, whilst in the insect world, instincts are
of supreme importance in the regulation of the community, there is
little instinctive action in human communities. The consciousness of
individuality, or egoism, is very powerful in human beings, and perhaps
for that reason our ancestors made little progress in the development
of social relations.
Anthropoid apes adhere in little groups or in families without any true
social organisation. Love of the neighbour, or altruism, appears to be
a recent and feeble human acquisition.
Although the organisation of human society is far advanced and
division of labour very complete, there is no differentiation of the
individuals comparable with what is found amongst insects. Although in
animals so different as Siphonophora, bees, wasps, and termites the
development of the community, proceeding along different lines, has
brought into existence non-sexual individuals, there is no trace of
this specialisation amongst human beings.
Certain abnormalities in the condition of the sexual organs are
occasionally found in men and women, but these cannot be compared with
the production of sexless individuals that has taken place amongst
other social creatures. I cannot accept the view that we are to see
something analogous to the case of worker bees in the prohibition of
sexual relations imposed by some religious systems on a certain number
of individuals. But in any event there is little importance in this
occurrence, which is rapidly becoming rarer.
In recent times, both in Europe and the United States of America, there
has been an active development of a femininist movement impelling women
towards higher education. Women, no longer content with the avocations
of mother and housewife, have pressed into professions such as law and
medicine. There is a steady increase in the number of women who study
at the Universities, and countries like Germany, which have tried to
exclude women from higher studies, will soon have to yield before an
irresistible pressure.
Can we regard the results of this movement as analogous to the
production of sexless workers which has taken place amongst social
insects? I think not. It is undoubtedly true that a certain number
of young women, who, for some reason or other are unlikely to marry,
devote themselves to scientific study. In these cases, however,
celibacy is the cause, not the result of the increased intellectual
activity. On the other hand, it must be remembered that many women
students of science eventually marry. In St. Petersburg, for instance,
there were 1,091 women in the Medical School; of these 80 were already
married and 19 were widows. Of the remaining 992, 436 or 44 per cent.
married during the course of their studies.
Observation of the femininist movement, which has lasted for more than
forty years, shows that in most cases there is no tendency towards the
formation of individuals resembling the infertile worker insects. Most
lady doctors and learned women would like nothing better than to be the
founders of a family. Even the women who have been most distinguished
in the scientific world are no exception to the rule. In this relation
it is very interesting to follow the details of the life of Sophie
Kowalevsky, one of the most notable of learned women. In her youth,
when she began to study mathematics, she would not admit that feelings
of love had any importance. Later on, however, when she felt herself
growing old, these sentiments awoke in her to such an extent that on
the day when the prize of the Academy of Sciences was bestowed on her,
she wrote to one of her friends, “I am getting innumerable letters of
congratulation, but by the strange irony of fate, I have never felt so
unhappy.”
The cause of this discontent reveals itself in the words which she
addressed to her most intimate woman friend. “Why is it,” she said,
“that no one loves me? I could give more than most women, and while the
most ordinary women are loved, as for me, I am not loved.”[169]
It is, in fact, impossible to regard the celibacy of persons devoted
to religion or to scientific studies as the beginning of a special
organisation analogous to that of worker bees.
However, it is still probable that in the human race a special
differentiation has been established for the accomplishment of
different and essential functions.
The organisation of human societies has certainly not followed the path
by which social insects attained the formation of sexless individuals.
It much more closely resembles what has taken place in some isolated
animal types. A solitary bee, named _Halictus quadricinctus_ (Fig. 27),
is characterised by the fact that the female does not die when she has
laid her last eggs, as generally happens amongst insects, but remains
alive to cherish her offspring. This final portion of her life does not
last long, and the bee cannot play the prominent part of governess in a
society of insects organised by this specialisation of elderly females.
In the human race the individual life lasts longer and a division of
labour takes place in the fashion suggested by _Halictus quadricinctus_.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.—_Halictus quadricinctus._
(After Buffon.)]
An ordinary woman ceases to be fertile at between forty and fifty years
old, that is to say, at a time when, according to statistics, she has
still on the average twenty years to live. During this long period,
she can perform an extremely useful function in society, a function
resembling that of the old mothers of _Halictus quadricinctus_, and
consisting chiefly in the bringing up and education of the children.
Who does not know the extraordinary devotion of grandmothers, and, as
a general rule, of old women, who are extremely useful in bringing up
children. And none the less, it must not be forgotten that, actually,
old age begins too soon, that it is not what it ought to be under
normal conditions, and that human life itself does not last nearly so
long as it ought to do in ideal conditions. We may predict that when
science occupies the preponderating place in human society that it
ought to have, and when knowledge of hygiene is more advanced, human
life will become much longer and the part of old people will become
much more important than it is to-day.
The members of human society are not divided into sexual and neuter
individuals as amongst insects, but the active life of every individual
can be divided into two periods, the first one of productive activity,
and the second of sterility but none the less devoted to work useful
to the community. The essential difference between the two cases may
be reduced to the contrast that whilst the individuals of which animal
societies are composed are structurally incomplete, in human societies
the individual preserves his integrity.
We come, then, to the result that the more highly organised a social
being may be, so also the more highly developed is his individuality.
It follows that amongst the theories which seek to control social
life, those are the best which leave a field sufficiently wide and
free for the development of individual initiative. The ideal which
has been so often advocated and according to which the individual
is to be sacrificed as completely as possible to society, cannot be
regarded as in harmony with the general law of organic associations.
Special conditions exist in social life in which great sacrifices are
inevitable, but such an arrangement cannot be considered as general
and permanent. We may predict that the more human beings succeed in
advancing communal life, the fewer cases there will be in which the
individual has to be sacrificed.
In the hope of subduing the egoism rooted in human nature, moralists
have preached renunciation of individual happiness and the need of
subordinating it to the good of the community. Very often such
doctrine has borne little fruit, but there are cases where it has been
embraced with such ardour that men and, still more, young women have
been led to sacrifice their well-being for what they have taken to be
the common good. However it may involve self-abnegation, there has been
continued insistence on the duty of sacrificing the individual to the
community.
The existing great inequalities in the distribution of wealth have
revived doctrines the object of which is to redress such injustice.
For more than a century, different forms of socialism have claimed
to formulate rules for the amelioration of mankind. They agree in
a verdict against existing conditions, but follow different paths
in their proposals for the reformation of society. The varieties of
socialism are so numerous that it is difficult even to define the
word. Although collectivist theories have lost much of their early
thoroughness, they are still far from admitting the just claims of
the individuals constituting the society. At socialist assemblies and
congresses the resolutions adopted frequently proclaim aggressively the
sacrifice of the rights of the individual. The members of one socialist
party have been seen refusing the collaboration of newspapers which are
not the official organs of the party, or declining any co-operation
with a government they have proscribed. In strikes organised by
socialists, work is forbidden to men who ardently desire it. Recently
printers have refused to set up newspapers the opinions of which they
did not share, and even doctors have been known to decline to treat
those belonging to another political party.
It is no new charge against collectivists that they would encroach
too much on individual liberty. They reply that “in social-democratic
society of the future, tyranny and oppression will be impossible. The
secret of the bond will reside in a discipline totally different from
the inanimate obedience of the soldier, a discipline depending on a
willing submission of the individual to the group because of the common
object.”[170] But such discipline and submission may go so far that the
conscience of the individual is seriously offended. And so amongst the
socialists themselves there has arisen a small group which declines to
accept this submergence of the individual in the whole. This group is
composed of anarchists, who, in the name of liberty and the individual,
attack the property and sometimes the lives of their opponents.
It appears that there has been a notable evolution of collectivist
theories in the century or more in which the abolition of human misery
has been an accepted problem. Whilst there was formerly advocated
the total abolition of private property and the establishment of
phalansteries for communal life, at the present time the demand is
limited to the nationalisation of the means of production, leaving
housing and food to be provided by individual property.[171]
Through a publication, of M. Kautsky, one of their best known
representatives, the social democrats have announced that “the
nationalisation of the land does not necessarily bring with it the
abolition of private dwellings. The customary attachment of the
dwelling to agricultural employment will cease, but there is no reason
why the peasants’ houses should become collective property.” “Modern
socialism does not exclude individual property in food. One of the
most important, perhaps the most important factor, in making human
life happy and adding to its pleasures is the possible attainment of
a private house. Collective ownership of the land does not exclude
this.” It is very difficult to separate house and garden, especially
from the point of view of considering the pleasures of life. A
garden furnishes the opportunity for endless improvements, many of
which cannot be separated from the idea of individual property. The
concessions which collectivists have been compelled to make show
conclusively the importance of private property.
Notwithstanding such modifications, many voices have been raised
against the prospect of the socialisation of the means of production
and the concomitant limitations of individual enterprise. The great
English philosopher, Herbert Spencer,[172] against whom narrowness
of view or conservatism could be urged, energetically attacked
collectivist doctrines as tending to reduce human individuality to
a dead level. By a series of cogent instances, he showed the evil
results of the best intentioned efforts to equalise opportunities
and to abolish poverty. He foretold that slavery would be the real
outcome if the State interfered too much in spheres that ought to be
left to individual enterprise. He believed that the institution of a
collectivist State would bring great dangers.
Nietzsche has attacked socialism with his customary exaggeration.
“Socialism,”[173] he wrote, “is the fanatical younger brother of dying
despotism, whose goods he wishes to inherit; his efforts are, in the
deepest sense of the word, reactionary. He wishes a wealth of power in
the State greater than despotism ever enjoyed, but he goes beyond all
the past inasmuch as he strives absolutely to stifle the individual;
for him the individual is a useless efflorescence of nature to be
tamed into a useful organ of the community.” Further, “Socialism at
least teaches brutally and convincingly the danger of concentrating
power in the State, for it is a covert attack on the State itself.
When its harsh voice raises the war-cry ‘Let the State control as much
as possible,’ the cry will at first become louder; but soon another
phrase will grow equally clamant, ‘Let the State control as little as
possible.’”
It is most probable that no shade of socialism will be able to
solve the problem of social life with a sufficient respect for the
maintenance of individual liberty. None the less the progress of human
knowledge will inevitably bring about a great levelling of human
fortunes. Intellectual culture will lead men to give up many things
that are superfluous or even harmful, and that are still thought
indispensable by most people. The conceptions that the greatest good
fortune consists in the complete evolution of the normal cycle of human
life and that this goal can be reached most easily by plain and sober
habits will convince men of the folly of much of the luxury that now
shortens human existence. Whilst the rich will choose a simpler mode of
life and the poor will be able to live better, none the less, private
property, acquired or inherited, may be maintained. Evolution must
be gradual and much effort and new knowledge is required. Sociology,
a new-born science, must learn of biology, her older sister. Biology
teaches us that in proportion that the organisation becomes more
complex, the consciousness of individuality develops, until a point is
reached at which individuality cannot be sacrificed to the community.
Amongst low creatures such as _Myxomycetes_ and _Siphonophora_, the
individuals disappear wholly or almost wholly in the community;
but the sacrifice is small, as in these creatures the consciousness
of individuality has not appeared. Social insects are in a stage
intermediate between that of the lower animals and man. It is only in
man that the individual has definitely acquired consciousness, and for
that reason a satisfactory social organisation cannot sacrifice it on
pretext of the common good. To this conclusion the study of the social
evolution of living beings leads me.
It is plain that the study of human individuality is a necessary step
in the organisation of the social life of human beings.