146 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



to live except in a society, and yet no one could infer this 

 fact from their structure, which differs in no essential 

 character from that of their soHtary congeners. It would 

 seem, therefore, that some other pecuhar condition in 

 addition to the high development of the neuromuscular 

 system is essential to the formation of true societies. This 

 I beheve to be the development of the family. So long as its 

 members remain together, a family is, of course, a rudimental 

 society, with reproductive, nutritive and protective functions 

 and an unmistakable differentiation, or division of labor 

 in its components. All the societies of insects are hierely 

 single families in origin though they may become very 

 populous and acquire an extraordinary differentiation of 

 their members. The family origin of the flocks and herds 

 of birds and mammals and hordes and tribes of primitive 

 man is also apparent; though in these societies the family 

 is open and not closed as in insects and there is a retention 

 in the flocks, herds and hordes of primitive aggregative or 

 associative tendencies which seem to hark back to the 

 ancestral fish and tadpole stages. This retention is apparent 

 in important further developments to be briefly considered 

 in a later paragraph. 



The family impHes the vital aflihation of the off"spring 

 with the parents and this can only be accompHshed on the 

 condition that the adult hfe of the parents is sufficiently 

 prolonged to admit of rearing the off"spring to maturity. 

 This increase in parental longevity also permits a corre- 

 sponding extension of the care of the off'spring and gives the 

 latter time for a more complicated development and greater 

 opportunities for learning and therefore of preparation 

 for adult life. The latter consideration has been often 

 discussed by sociologists, psychologists and educators, 

 but the increase of the adult life of the parents as a prereq- 

 uisite to that of the young has been overlooked. It is just 

 this latter condition which enables us to account for the 

 beginnings and further development of the families which 

 become the elaborate closed societies of the ants, wasps, 

 bees and termites. Most mother insects die soon after 

 oviposition and the young are left to shift for themselves, 

 but in certain groups, owing to peculiarities of food or 



