7 



The Importance 

 of Social Life 



The evolution of societies of animals is inevitable. The 

 underlying and innate organizing potentials of the mind- 

 matter substance, as I see it, extend to the grouping and 

 evolving of cooperative individuals wherever and whenever 

 conditions will permit, just as there is a natural tendency at 

 the unicellular level to seek higher configurations in multi- 

 cellular organisms. It would seem that social organization is 

 necessary, not only for mere survival, but also for the reali- 

 zation of rising levels of awareness and intelligence. Cer- 

 tainly, it is the association of cooperative individuals carry- 

 ing forward by language an accumulating tradition which 

 has endowed man with his high-level understanding. The 

 mind of present-day man is the product of this accumulating 

 tradition through contact with his fellows, past and present. 

 No solitary, noncooperative animal could possibly possess 

 the higher levels of mind. And even in the best of situations, 

 as we see them on this earth, it is obvious that the ideal so- 

 ciety has yet to evolve. In social, as in organic evolution, na- 

 ture is seeking and striving but has no preconceived or direct 

 way to reach the goal. She can and does fail at any level. 



The naturalness with which animals fall into various so- 

 cial patterns is apparent from the record of research. W. C. 

 Allee, who has spent a distinguished lifetime in the study of 

 social tendencies in animals, concludes that there exists a 



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