LAWS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG LOWER ANIMALS. 6 77 



LAWS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG THE LOWER 



ANIMALS. 



By J. W. SLATEK, F. E. S. 



" Positive morality under some form or other has existed in every society of which the 

 world has had experience." (Gkote's Fragments on Ethical Subjects, vol. iii, p. 497.) 



WHETHER the author just quoted knowingly or intention- 

 ally referred to the societies of the lower animals, as well as 

 to those of mankind, I am not aware. Perhaps, if he had no such 

 intentions, his testimony may be regarded as all the more valu- 

 able. Assuredly the ant-hill, the wasp's nest, the rookery, or even 

 the roaming herd of elephants, antelopes, peccaries, or the like, 

 could not cohere, and therefore could not continue to exist as such, 

 without some kind of law and government. Such law, too, must 

 have its foundations laid not exclusively in the physical force of 

 the individual, but in part upon notions of right or wrong, how- 

 ever vague and crude. Absolute personal equality is probably 

 non-existent in any case. Bodily strength plays a part the more 

 prominent the less complex and perfect is the organization of the 

 society. In a herd of bisons, of wild horses, of elephants, or in a 

 troop of baboons, the strongest, generally a male in the prime of 

 life, possesses and exerts a certain supremacy. He holds exactly 

 the same position as does the chief of a savage human tribe; 

 holds it by the same tenure and exercises it in a very similar 

 manner, and subject to the same limitations. That his authority 

 is not absolutely uncontrolled we may learn from a fact to which 

 I shall have to return the existence of adult males, generally 

 large and powerful, who live in exile. 



Among birds the moral life is more highly developed than 

 among mammalia, as we may learn from their being more gen- 

 erally monogamous. Hence, with them, individual superiority 

 sinks very much into the background. The rookery or the her- 

 onry seems to form a republic where all are subject to a code of 

 laws which the majority is always ready to put in force against 

 any offender. 



The queen bee holds her position by the right of the strongest 

 as against all rivals, and, on the birth or the introduction of 

 another female, she is always bound to do battle to the death for 

 her position. But her sway over her subjects if such we may 

 consider them unlike that of the strongest tusker in a herd of 

 elephants, rests nowise upon physical force. 



Before speaking of the laws of brutes, we must necessarily first 

 show that they have a perception of duties and of rights. Many 

 facts prove that the lower animals recognize property, and distin- 



