We thus find an identical condition of the sexual relations between the females of a group and its older and younger male members to be common in the animal world—the domination, in fact, of an idea that might, in the person of the senior male, confers marital rights over the female members of the family, and an inchoate rule of action resulting therefrom; which bars from the enjoyment of such right each junior male. To hold that man, whilst in the animal stage, should form an exception to the general rule seems unreasonable. If, as we are inclined to believe, he was originally a quite non-social animal, the fact becomes more possible still that, as with modern types of anthropoid apes, each adult as head of a group was at feud with every other. As regards the social evolution, it would indeed seem most natural that, as Mr. Darwin conceived, the first step in progress should have been taken by animals already united gregariously, and thus already imbued with some social feelings. Strange to say, the path in advance which the ancestor of man, in the light of our hypothesis, was destined to follow, disclosed itself as an indirect consequence of the very intensity of his non-social characteristic. In fact, as I fancy mil become evident in the development of our argument, the only line of progress open to man was one inaccessible to animals of gregarious habits, judging by the economy of life in a troop of mandrills or baboons.
Having ventured to differ from the great naturalist on this point, I would with deference take exception to his further statement—'That the younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close inter-breeding within the limits of the same family.' This, if I understand it rightly, would convey the idea that this youthful band quitted the scene of their birth, and deserted entirely their original habitat in the forest. I cannot help considering it an error to imagine that such wanderings could thus be without bounds. Nothing seems to me more remarkable and irrevocable in savage Nature than the rigid localisation of all living things in her realm. No fish in the sea, no bird in the air, but has its local habitation, which only becomes free to the stranger on the death of the occupant.[3] No corner on earth but seems to hold its lawful tenant, and the bounds thereof are defined within rigid limits. Within, there is safety, with a sense of ownership; without, is the great unknown, possessed by others, fiercely ready to defend their rights, and threaten every danger and death to the stranger intruder—unless quite otherwise formidable than adolescent youth.
It is thus probable, in fact, that in common with the lower animals, the band of exiled young males of our anthropoid ancestor haunted the neighbourhood of the parent herd, remaining thus on familiar ground, and in hearing of friendly voices. For we must remember that their feud was only with the paternal parent. In the magic alembic of time the constantly increasing shadow of their presence would take sudden dreadful form, but in parricidal crime alone. The sequel in disastrous incest, which Mr. Darwin would here conjecture at, Nature alone has ever been impotent to deal with. The problem of an effectual bar to undesirable union between brother and sister was solved by man alone, and in the Primal Law. An effort of his embryonic intellect, thus early defiant of Nature, the law placed ethically, for once and for ever, a distinction between him and every other creature.
[1] Why 'single?—A. L.
[2] Descent of Man, p. 501.
[3] This fact is well known to anglers for trout.—A. L.