Mutual Aid | Page 5

throwing a new light on the whole
subject. Kessler's idea was, that besides the 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 expressed by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man--seemed
to me so correct and of so great an importance, that since I became
acquainted with it (in 1883) I began to collect materials for further
developing the idea, which Kessler had only cursorily sketched in his
lecture, but had not lived to develop. He died in 1881.
In one point only I could not entirely endorse Kessler's views. Kessler
alluded to "parental feeling" and care for progeny (see below, Chapter I)
as to the source of mutual inclinations in animals. However, to
determine how far these two feelings have really been at work in the
evolution of sociable instincts, and how far other instincts have been at
work in the same 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 proper--the latter having evidently its
origin at the earliest stages of the evolution of the animal world,
perhaps even at the "colony-stages." I consequently directed my chief
attention to establishing first of all, the importance of the Mutual Aid
factor of evolution, leaving to ulterior research the task of discovering
the origin of the Mutual Aid instinct in Nature.
The importance of the Mutual Aid factor--"if its generality could only
be demonstrated"--did not escape the naturalist's genius so manifest in
Goethe. When Eckermann told once to Goethe-- it was in 1827--that
two little wren-fledglings, which had run away from him, were found
by him next day in the nest of robin redbreasts (Rothkehlchen), which
fed the little ones, together with their own youngsters, 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 zoologist) to make a special study of the subject, adding
that he would surely come "to quite invaluable treasuries of results"
(Gesprache, edition of 1848, vol. iii. pp. 219, 221). Unfortunately, this
study was never made, although it is very possible that Brehm, who has
accumulated in his works such rich materials relative to mutual aid
among animals, might have been inspired by Goethe's remark.
Several works of importance were published in the years 1872-1886,
dealing with the intelligence and the mental life of animals (they are
mentioned in a footnote in Chapter I of this book), and three of them
dealt more especially with the subject under consideration; namely, Les
Societes animales, by Espinas (Paris, 1877); La Lutte pour l'existence
et l'association pout la lutte, a lecture by J.L. Lanessan (April 1881);
and Louis Buchner's book, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt, of
which the first edition appeared in 1882 or 1883, and a second, much
enlarged, in 1885. But excellent though each of these works is, they
leave ample room for a work in which Mutual Aid would be considered,

not only as an argument in favour of a pre-human origin of moral
instincts, but also as a law of Nature and a factor of evolution. Espinas
devoted his main attention to such animal societies (ants, bees) as are
established upon a physiological division of labour, and though his
work is full of admirable hints in all possible directions, it was 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