The gregarious life, as this writer has shown in detail, predominates among the herbivora and graminivora, who, as a rule, being ill armed for strife and finding food in abundance, find it to their advantage to live in herds.
The contrary is the case with the carnivora; they are well armed, and need ample space in which to hunt down their prey, so that it is to their advantage to live in isolation, except in those cases already mentioned, where they associate together for a difficult chase, or for defence against a dangerous enemy.[[174]]
We may add that there are animals which, as they find it to their advantage or otherwise, live alternately in communities or isolated. “Certain sociable birds in Australia build bowers of branches, where they assemble in great numbers during the day. In pairing-time the society is broken up, and each couple retires by itself to construct its own separate nest. While the temporary families last there is no longer any assemblage, nor any life in common; it only begins again when the young are able to try their wings. This is only one of numberless examples which might be mentioned.”[[175]]
In short, gregarious life depends on stature, strength, means of defence, kind and distribution of food, and mode of propagation. Derived from necessity, this habit of life in common creates a solidarity which is not mechanical and external, but psychological: the sight, the touch, the smell of his companions constitute in each individual a part of his own consciousness, of which he feels the want in its absence; the distressed state and the lamentations of an animal separated by chance from the herd are well known.
Here a disputed question suggests itself. It has been already settled by implication in the course of the statements already made, but it cannot be thus treated retrospectively and merely in passing. For the moment I may confine myself to indicating it. If we compare family societies and gregarious societies, what relation is there between them? We find ourselves in presence of two opinions or theories—one in favour of unity, the other of duality.
The first, the most ancient and widespread, derives social life from domestic life. The family is the social molecule: by its increase are formed aggregates of a more or less complex character, whose life in common creates a solidarity and an exchange of services—i.e., the conditions of a community.
The second admits two groups of irreducible feelings and tendencies, mutually independent, though there are points of contact. The social instinct is not derived from the domestic feelings, while the latter are not derived from the social feelings. They are distinct by nature, having their respective sources in the attraction of like for like, irrespective of sex, and in the sexual appetite and the development of the tender emotions.
More than this: some writers, especially zoologists, have maintained that there is not merely dualism but antagonism. When the feelings of domestic life are strong, social solidarity is lax or non-existent. When social solidarity is close and rigorous, the family tendencies are transitory, effaced, or nil—e.g., in ants and bees. The case of the Australian birds shows us this antagonism in an alternating form, the domestic and the social tendency predominating by turns. No doubt this antagonism is not irremediable and is compatible with various modifications and compromises; but there is, in fact, a dualism not to be explained away. I shall return later on to this question, only remarking in anticipation that the dualist view seems to me the only admissible one.
IV. The higher societies are those in which the animal world has attained its loftiest degree of social development. In them we find division of labour, solidarity, stability, and continuity through several generations. Such are bees, wasps, ants, termites, beavers, etc. It is not part of our subject to study them, since our only aim is to follow the social tendencies to their highest point; but the problem already suggested again arises: On what foundation do these higher societies rest? Espinas, who admits the view of the family as the source of social life, classes them among societies having reproduction for their purpose. For my own part, I refer them to the gregarious state, in which they mark the stage of the highest perfection. Let me take this opportunity of pointing out the inconveniences of a false position and the factitious difficulties arising from it. The author draws out (pp. 370 et seq.) a detailed comparison between the societies of bees and those of ants; he demonstrates the superiority of the latter, who, according to circumstances, dig, carve, build, hunt, store up food, reap harvests, keep slaves and cattle, and when they carry on war against the wasps (the warlike representatives of the bees) gain the victory. He also clearly shows that this superiority is due to their terrestrial habits, in which every contact, every march, leaves them a precise indication of the nature of their surroundings. But he finds something perplexing in this superiority. As a matter of fact, a hive is a perfect domestic society, since the queen-bee—i.e., the common mother—is the visible soul of social life among the bees. An ant-heap is imperfect, “inferior” as a domestic society, as containing several females. The apparent contradiction disappears, if we consider that in both cases, especially in the second, the essential element is the solidarity among the members, the mutual attraction between similar beings, and that, consequently, we must refer them to the gregarious, and not to the domestic type. For the rest, in neither case does the family, in the true sense of the word, exist: it is needless to demonstrate this at length, it is quite sufficient to note the absence of maternal love. And so certain writers have made use of this argument—as I have already said—to prove that such a high development of the social tendencies has only been possible through the suppression of the family tendencies.