Mutual Aid | Page 7

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 tried to indicate in brief
the immense importance which the mutual-support instincts, inherited
by mankind from its extremely long evolution, play even now in our
modern society, which is supposed to rest upon the principle: "every
one for himself, and the State for all," but which it never has succeeded,
nor will succeed in realizing.
It may be objected to this book that both animals and men are
represented in it under too favourable an aspect; that their sociable
qualities are insisted upon, while their anti-social and self-asserting
instincts are hardly touched upon. This was, however, unavoidable. We
have heard so much lately of the "harsh, pitiless struggle for life,"
which was said to be carried on by every animal against all other
animals, every "savage" against all other "savages," and every civilized
man against all his co-citizens--and these assertions have so 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 facility for the development of intellectual
faculties; and that they have given to men, in addition to the same
advantages, the possibility of working out those institutions which have
enabled mankind to survive in its hard struggle against Nature, and to
progress, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of its history. It is a book
on the law of Mutual Aid, viewed at as one of the chief factors of
evolution--not on all factors of evolution and their respective values;
and this first book had to be written, before the latter could become
possible.
I should certainly be the last to underrate the part which the
self-assertion of the individual has played in the evolution of mankind.
However, this subject requires, I believe, a much deeper treatment than
the one it has hitherto received. In the history of mankind, individual
self-assertion has often been, and continually is, something quite
different from, and far larger and deeper than, the petty, unintelligent
narrow-mindedness, which, with a large class of writers, goes for
"individualism" and "self-assertion." N or have history-making
individuals been limited to those whom historians have represented as
heroes. My intention, consequently, is, if circumstances permit it, to
discuss separately the part taken by the 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 later on, the
pardon of offences, or a still higher ideal of equality before the human
conscience, in lieu of "compensation," according to class-value. But at
the very same time, another portion of the same individual rebels
endeavoured to break down the protective institutions of mutual
support, with no other intention but to increase their own wealth and

their own powers. In this three-cornered contest, between the two
classes of revolted individuals and the supporters of what existed, lies
the real tragedy of history. But to delineate that contest, and honestly to
study the part played in the evolution of mankind by each one of these
three forces, would require at least as many years as it took me to write
this book.
Of works dealing with nearly the same subject, which have been
published since the publication of my articles on Mutual Aid among
Animals, I must mention The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man,
by Henry Drummond (London, 1894), and The Origin and Growth of
the Moral Instinct, by A. Sutherland (London, 1898). Both are
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