THE SOCIETAL ORGANISM 



generations of individuals. The degree of integration 

 and specialization that has been attained by certain 

 insect colonies is so great, that survival of the individ- 

 ual animal outside of the colony is no longer possible. 

 Even if individuals could survive for some time, a 

 small number of loosely associated individuals could 

 not reproduce themselves effectively. In such cases, the 

 term "colony" is no longer descriptive of the existing 

 situation. Behavior is more readily understood if one 

 realizes that one is dealing with primitive forms of 

 societal organisms. 



What are the factors that are likely to determine the 

 effectiveness of a developing societal organism? It is 

 reasonable to expect that these factors should be 

 analogous to those, that on a lower level would deter- 

 mine the effectiveness of an ordinary multicellular 

 organism. On this basis, the following factors can be 

 cited: Initial complexity of building units; total num- 

 ber of units participating in the integration process; 

 degree of integration that has been achieved; degree of 

 specialization of various groups of participating units. 



Consideration of these factors indicates that the so- 

 cietal organisms into which such creatures as insects 

 are capable of developing, will, be clearly limited as to 

 their maximum attainable effectiveness. The main rea- 

 son for this is the relatively low initial level of com- 

 plexity of the individual insects. On the other hand one 

 can expect that the higher form§ of animal life, which 



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