Books: Mutual Aid
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P. Kropotkin >> Mutual Aid
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I also ought to say a few words at least about the "compound
families" of the elephants, their mutual attachment, their
deliberate ways in posting sentries, and the feelings of sympathy
developed by such a life of close mutual support.(20) I might
mention the sociable feelings of those disreputable creatures the
wild boars, and find a word of praise for their powers of
association in the case of an attack by a beast of prey.(21) The
hippopotamus and the rhinoceros, too, would occupy a place in a
work devoted to animal sociability. Several striking pages might
be given to the sociability and mutual attachment of the seals
and the walruses; and finally, one might mention the most
excellent feelings existing among the sociable cetaceans. But I
have to say yet a few words about the societies of monkeys, which
acquire an additional interest from their being the link which
will bring us to the societies of primitive men.
It is hardly needful to say that those mammals, which stand
at the very top of the animal world and most approach man by
their structure and intelligence, are eminently sociable.
evidently we must be prepared to meet with all varieties of
character and habits in so great a division of the animal kingdom
which includes hundreds of species. But, all things considered,
it must be said that sociability, action in common, mutual
protection, and a high development of those feelings which are
the necessary outcome of social life, are characteristic of most
monkeys and apes. From the smallest species to the biggest ones,
sociability is a rule to which we know but a few exceptions. The
nocturnal apes prefer isolated life; the capuchins (Cebus
capucinus), the monos, and the howling monkeys live but in small
families; and the orang-outans have never been seen by A.R.
Wallace otherwise than either solitary or in very small groups of
three or four individuals, while the gorillas seem never to join
in bands. But all the remainder of the monkey tribe--the
chimpanzees, the sajous, the sakis, the mandrills, the baboons,
and so on--are sociable in the highest degree. They live in
great bands, and even join with other species than their own.
Most of them become quite unhappy when solitary. The cries of
distress of each one of the band immediately bring together the
whole of the band, and they boldly repulse the attacks of most
carnivores and birds of prey. Even eagles do not dare attack
them. They plunder our fields always in bands--the old ones
taking care for the safety of the commonwealth. The little
tee-tees, whose childish sweet faces so much struck Humboldt,
embrace and protect one another when it rains, rolling their
tails over the necks of their shivering comrades. Several species
display the greatest solicitude for their wounded, and do not
abandon a wounded comrade during a retreat till they have
ascertained that it is dead and that they are helpless to restore
it to life. Thus James Forbes narrated in his Oriental Memoirs a
fact of such resistance in reclaiming from his hunting party the
dead body of a female monkey that one fully understands why "the
witnesses of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to
fire at one of the monkey race."(22) In some species several
individuals will combine to overturn a stone in order to search
for ants' eggs under it. The hamadryas not only post sentries,
but have been seen making a chain for the transmission of the
spoil to a safe place; and their courage is well known. Brehm's
description of the regular fight which his caravan had to sustain
before the hamadryas would let it resume its journey in the
valley of the Mensa, in Abyssinia, has become classical.(23) The
playfulness of the tailed apes and the mutual attachment which
reigns in the families of chimpanzees also are familiar to the
general reader. And if we find among the highest apes two
species, the orang-outan and the gorilla, which are not sociable,
we must remember that both--limited as they are to very small
areas, the one in the heart of Africa, and the other in the two
islands of Borneo and Sumatra have all the appearance of being
the last remnants of formerly much more numerous species. The
gorilla at least seems to have been sociable in olden times, if
the apes mentioned in the Periplus really were gorillas.
We thus see, even from the above brief review, that life in
societies is no exception in the animal world; it is the rule,
the law of Nature, and it reaches its fullest development with
the higher vertebrates. Those species which live solitary, or in
small families only, are relatively few, and their numbers are
limited. Nay, it appears very probable that, apart from a few
exceptions, those birds and mammals which are not gregarious now,
were living in societies before man multiplied on the earth and
waged a permanent war against them, or destroyed the sources from
which they formerly derived food. "On ne s'associe pas pour
mourir," was the sound remark of Espinas; and Houzeau, who knew
the animal world of some parts of America when it was not yet
affected by man, wrote to the same effect.
Association is found in the animal world at all degrees of
evolution; and, according to the grand idea of Herbert Spencer,
so brilliantly developed in Perrier's Colonies Animales, colonies
are at the very origin of evolution in the animal kingdom. But,
in proportion as we ascend the scale of evolution, we see
association growing more and more conscious. It loses its purely
physical character, it ceases to be simply instinctive, it
becomes reasoned. With the higher vertebrates it is periodical,
or is resorted to for the satisfaction of a given want--
propagation of the species, migration, hunting, or mutual
defence. It even becomes occasional, when birds associate against
a robber, or mammals combine, under the pressure of exceptional
circumstances, to emigrate. In this last case, it becomes a
voluntary deviation from habitual moods of life. The combination
sometimes appears in two or more degrees--the family first,
then the group, and finally the association of groups, habitually
scattered, but uniting in case of need, as we saw it with the
bisons and other ruminants. It also takes higher forms,
guaranteeing more independence to the individual without
depriving it of the benefits of social life. With most rodents
the individual has its own dwelling, which it can retire to when
it prefers being left alone; but the dwellings are laid out in
villages and cities, so as to guarantee to all inhabitants the
benefits and joys of social life. And finally, in several
species, such as rats, marmots, hares, etc., sociable life is
maintained notwithstanding the quarrelsome or otherwise egotistic
inclinations of the isolated individual. Thus it is not imposed,
as is the case with ants and bees, by the very physiological
structure of the individuals; it is cultivated for the benefits
of mutual aid, or for the sake of its pleasures. And this, of
course, appears with all possible gradations and with the
greatest variety of individual and specific characters--the
very variety of aspects taken by social life being a consequence,
and for us a further proof, of its generality.(24)
Sociability--that is, the need of the animal of associating
with its like--the love of society for society's sake, combined
with the "joy of life," only now begins to receive due attention
from the zoologists.(25) We know at the present time that all
animals, beginning with the ants, going on to the birds, and
ending with the highest mammals, are fond of plays, wrestling,
running after each other, trying to capture each other, teasing
each other, and so on. And while many plays are, so to speak, a
school for the proper behaviour of the young in mature life,
there are others, which, apart from their utilitarian purposes,
are, together with dancing and singing, mere manifestations of an
excess of forces--"the joy of life," and a desire to
communicate in some way or another with other individuals of the
same or of other species--in short, a manifestation of
sociability proper, which is a distinctive feature of all the
animal world.(26) Whether the feeling be fear, experienced at
the appearance of a bird of prey, or "a fit of gladness" which
bursts out when the animals are in good health and especially
when young, or merely the desire of giving play to an excess of
impressions and of vital power--the necessity of communicating
impressions, of playing, of chattering, or of simply feeling the
proximity of other kindred living beings pervades Nature, and is,
as much as any other physiological function, a distinctive
feature of life and impressionability. This need takes a higher
development and attains a more beautiful expression in mammals,
especially amidst their young, and still more among the birds;
but it pervades all Nature, and has been fully observed by the
best naturalists, including Pierre Huber, even amongst the ants,
and it is evidently the same instinct which brings together the
big columns of butterflies which have been referred to already.
The habit of coming together for dancing and of decorating
the places where the birds habitually perform their dances is, of
course, well known from the pages that Darwin gave to this
subject in The Descent of Man (ch. xiii). Visitors of the London
Zoological Gardens also know the bower of the satin bower-bird.
But this habit of dancing seems to be much more widely spread
than was formerly believed, and Mr. W. Hudson gives in his
master-work on La Plata the most interesting description, which
must be read in the original, of complicated dances, performed by
quite a number of birds: rails, jacanas, lapwings, and so on.
The habit of singing in concert, which exists in several
species of birds, belongs to the same category of social
instincts. It is most strikingly developed with the chakar
(Chauna chavarris), to which the English have given the most
unimaginative misnomer of "crested screamer." These birds
sometimes assemble in immense flocks, and in such cases they
frequently sing all in concert. W.H. Hudson found them once in
countless numbers, ranged all round a pampas lake in well-defined
flocks, of about 500 birds in each flock.
"Presently," he writes, "one flock near me began singing, and
continued their powerful chant for three or four minutes; when
they ceased the next flock took up the strains, and after it the
next, and so on, until once more the notes of the flocks on the
opposite shore came floating strong and clear across the water--
then passed away, growing fainter and fainter, until once more
the sound approached me travelling round to my side again."
On another occasion the same writer saw a whole plain covered
with an endless flock of chakars, not in close order, but
scattered in pairs and small groups. About nine o'clock in the
evening, "suddenly the entire multitude of birds covering the
marsh for miles around burst forth in a tremendous evening
song.... It was a concert well worth riding a hundred miles to
hear."(27) It may be added that like all sociable animals, the
chakar easily becomes tame and grows very attached to man." They
are mild-tempered birds, and very rarely quarrel"--we are told--
although they are well provided with formidable weapons. Life
in societies renders these weapons useless.
That life in societies is the most powerful weapon in the
struggle for life, taken in its widest sense, has been
illustrated by several examples on the foregoing pages, and could
be illustrated by any amount of evidence, if further evidence
were required. Life in societies enables the feeblest insects,
the feeblest birds, and the feeblest mammals to resist, or to
protect themselves from, the most terrible birds and beasts of
prey; it permits longevity; it enables the species to rear its
progeny with the least waste of energy and to maintain its
numbers albeit a very slow birth-rate; it enables the gregarious
animals to migrate in search of new abodes. Therefore, while
fully admitting that force, swiftness, protective colours,
cunningness, and endurance to hunger and cold, which are
mentioned by Darwin and Wallace, are so many qualities making the
individual, or the species, the fittest under certain
circumstances, we maintain that under any circumstances
sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life.
Those species which willingly or unwillingly abandon it are
doomed to decay; while those animals which know best how to
combine, have the greatest chances of survival and of further
evolution, although they may be inferior to others in each of the
faculties enumerated by Darwin and Wallace, save the intellectual
faculty. The highest vertebrates, and especially mankind, are the
best proof of this assertion. As to the intellectual faculty,
while every Darwinist will agree with Darwin that it is the most
powerful arm in the struggle for life, and the most powerful
factor of further evolution, he also will admit that intelligence
is an eminently social faculty. Language, imitation, and
accumulated experience are so many elements of growing
intelligence of which the unsociable animal is deprived.
Therefore we find, at the top of each class of animals, the ants,
the parrots, and the monkeys, all combining the greatest
sociability with the highest development of intelligence. The
fittest are thus the most sociable animals, and sociability
appears as the chief factor of evolution, both directly, by
securing the well-being of the species while diminishing the
waste of energy, and indirectly, by favouring the growth of
intelligence.
Moreover, it is evident that life in societies would be
utterly impossible without a corresponding development of social
feelings, and, especially, of a certain collective sense of
justice growing to become a habit. If every individual were
constantly abusing its personal advantages without the others
interfering in favour of the wronged, no society--life would be
possible. And feelings of justice develop, more or less, with all
gregarious animals. Whatever the distance from which the swallows
or the cranes come, each one returns to the nest it has built or
repaired last year. If a lazy sparrow intends appropriating the
nest which a comrade is building, or even steals from it a few
sprays of straw, the group interferes against the lazy comrade;
and it is evident that without such interference being the rule,
no nesting associations of birds could exist. Separate groups of
penguins have separate resting-places and separate fishing
abodes, and do not fight for them. The droves of cattle in
Australia have particular spots to which each group repairs to
rest, and from which it never deviates; and so on.(28) We have
any numbers of direct observations of the peace that prevails in
the nesting associations of birds, the villages of the rodents,
and the herds of grass-eaters; while, on the other side, we know
of few sociable animals which so continually quarrel as the rats
in our cellars do, or as the morses, which fight for the
possession of a sunny place on the shore. Sociability thus puts a
limit to physical struggle, and leaves room for the development
of better moral feelings. The high development of parental love
in all classes of animals, even with lions and tigers, is
generally known. As to the young birds and mammals whom we
continually see associating, sympathy--not love--attains a
further development in their associations. Leaving aside the
really touching facts of mutual attachment and compassion which
have been recorded as regards domesticated animals and with
animals kept in captivity, we have a number of well certified
facts of compassion between wild animals at liberty. Max Perty
and L. Buchner have given a number of such facts.(29) J.C.
Wood's narrative of a weasel which came to pick up and to carry
away an injured comrade enjoys a well-merited popularity.(30) So
also the observation of Captain Stansbury on his journey to Utah
which is quoted by Darwin; he saw a blind pelican which was fed,
and well fed, by other pelicans upon fishes which had to be
brought from a distance of thirty miles.(31) And when a herd of
vicunas was hotly pursued by hunters, H.A. Weddell saw more than
once during his journey to Bolivia and Peru, the strong males
covering the retreat of the herd and lagging behind in order to
protect the retreat. As to facts of compassion with wounded
comrades, they are continually mentioned by all field zoologists.
Such facts are quite natural. Compassion is a necessary outcome
of social life. But compassion also means a considerable advance
in general intelligence and sensibility. It is the first step
towards the development of higher moral sentiments. It is, in its
turn, a powerful factor of further evolution.
If the views developed on the preceding pages are correct,
the question necessarily arises, in how far are they consistent
with the theory of struggle for life as it has been developed by
Darwin, Wallace, and their followers? and I will now briefly
answer this important question. First of all, no naturalist will
doubt that the idea of a struggle for life carried on through
organic nature is the greatest generalization of our century.
Life is struggle; and in that struggle the fittest survive. But
the answers to the questions, "By which arms is this struggle
chiefly carried on?" and "Who are the fittest in the struggle?"
will widely differ according to the importance given to the two
different aspects of the struggle: the direct one, for food and
safety among separate individuals, and the struggle which Darwin
described as "metaphorical"--the struggle, very often
collective, against adverse circumstances. No one will deny that
there is, within each species, a certain amount of real
competition for food--at least, at certain periods. But the
question is, whether competition is carried on to the extent
admitted by Darwin, or even by Wallace; and whether this
competition has played, in the evolution of the animal kingdom,
the part assigned to it.
The idea which permeates Darwin's work is certainly one of
real competition going on within each animal group for food,
safety, and possibility of leaving an offspring. He often speaks
of regions being stocked with animal life to their full capacity,
and from that overstocking he infers the necessity of
competition. But when we look in his work for real proofs of that
competition, we must confess that we do not find them
sufficiently convincing. If we refer to the paragraph entitled
"Struggle for Life most severe between Individuals and Varieties
of the same Species," we find in it none of that wealth of proofs
and illustrations which we are accustomed to find in whatever
Darwin wrote. The struggle between individuals of the same
species is not illustrated under that heading by even one single
instance: it is taken as granted; and the competition between
closely-allied animal species is illustrated by but five
examples, out of which one, at least (relating to the two species
of thrushes), now proves to be doubtful.(32) But when we look
for more details in order to ascertain how far the decrease of
one species was really occasioned by the increase of the other
species, Darwin, with his usual fairness, tells us:
"We can dimly see why the competition should be most severe
between allied forms which fill nearly the same place in nature;
but probably in no case could we precisely say why one species
has been victorious over another in the great battle of life."
As to Wallace, who quotes the same facts under a
slightly-modified heading ("Struggle for Life between closely-allied
Animals and Plants often most severe"), he makes the following
remark (italics are mine), which gives quite another aspect to the
facts above quoted. He says:
"In some cases, no doubt, there is actual war between the
two, the stronger killing the weaker. but this is by no means
necessary, and there may be cases in which the weaker species,
physically, may prevail by its power of more rapid
multiplication, its better withstanding vicissitudes of climate,
or its greater cunning in escaping the attacks of common
enemies."
In such cases what is described as competition may be no
competition at all. One species succumbs, not because it is
exterminated or starved out by the other species, but because it
does not well accommodate itself to new conditions, which the
other does. The term "struggle for life" is again used in its
metaphorical sense, and may have no other. As to the real
competition between individuals of the same species, which is
illustrated in another place by the cattle of South America
during a period of drought, its value is impaired by its being
taken from among domesticated animals. Bisons emigrate in like
circumstances in order to avoid competition. However severe the
struggle between plants--and this is amply proved--we cannot
but repeat Wallace's remark to the effect that "plants live where
they can," while animals have, to a great extent, the power of
choice of their abode. So that we again are asking ourselves, To
what extent does competition really exist within each animal
species? Upon what is the assumption based? The same remark must
be made concerning the indirect argument in favour of a severe
competition and struggle for life within each species, which may
be derived from the "extermination of transitional varieties," so
often mentioned by Darwin. It is known that for a long time
Darwin was worried by the difficulty which he saw in the absence
of a long chain of intermediate forms between closely-allied
species, and that he found the solution of this difficulty in the
supposed extermination of the intermediate forms.(33) However,
an attentive reading of the different chapters in which Darwin
and Wallace speak of this subject soon brings one to the
conclusion that the word "extermination" does not mean real
extermination; the same remark which Darwin made concerning his
expression: "struggle for existence," evidently applies to the
word "extermination" as well. It can by no means be understood in
its direct sense, but must be taken "in its metaphoric sense." If
we start from the supposition that a given area is stocked with
animals to its fullest capacity, and that a keen competition for
the sheer means of existence is consequently going on between all
the inhabitants--each animal being compelled to fight against
all its congeners in order to get its daily food--then the
appearance of a new and successful variety would certainly mean
in many cases (though not always) the appearance of individuals
which are enabled to seize more than their fair share of the
means of existence; and the result would be that those
individuals would starve both the parental form which does not
possess the new variation and the intermediate forms which do not
possess it in the same degree. It may be that at the outset,
Darwin understood the appearance of new varieties under this
aspect; at least, the frequent use of the word "extermination"
conveys such an impression. But both he and Wallace knew Nature
too well not to perceive that this is by no means the only
possible and necessary course of affairs.
If the physical and the biological conditions of a given
area, the extension of the area occupied by a given species, and
the habits of all the members of the latter remained unchanged--
then the sudden appearance of a new variety might mean the
starving out and the extermination of all the individuals which
were not endowed in a sufficient degree with the new feature by
which the new variety is characterized. But such a combination of
conditions is precisely what we do not see in Nature. Each
species is continually tending to enlarge its abode; migration to
new abodes is the rule with the slow snail, as with the swift
bird; physical changes are continually going on in every given
area; and new varieties among animals consist in an immense
number of cases-perhaps in the majority--not in the growth of
new weapons for snatching the food from the mouth of its
congeners--food is only one out of a hundred of various
conditions of existence--but, as Wallace himself shows in a
charming paragraph on the "divergence of characters" (Darwinism,
p. 107), in forming new habits, moving to new abodes, and taking
to new sorts of food. In all such cases there will be no
extermination, even no competition--the new adaptation being a
relief from competition, if it ever existed; and yet there will
be, after a time, an absence of intermediate links, in
consequence of a mere survival of those which are best fitted for
the new conditions--as surely as under the hypothesis of
extermination of the parental form. It hardly need be added that
if we admit, with Spencer, all the Lamarckians, and Darwin
himself, the modifying influence of the surroundings upon the
species, there remains still less necessity for the extermination
of the intermediate forms.
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