Mutual Aid; a factor of evolution

he extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction

ng for it - that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most

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 t

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 narr

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

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,

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 ex

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 pr

oungsters, 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 zoolog

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 thou

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 eve

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.

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 asserti

ment 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 tr

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 facilit

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

e 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 P

ern 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

owles, my very best thanks, both for the kind hospitality which he offered to these papers in his

t, 1902.