COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 331 



lire lost. They are uuseen by others, and the experience of each dies 

 with it. For, as we well know, it is only the general, not the special 

 powers of the mind that are transmitted by heredity. No child is 

 born with the special knowledge of its parents, though it may possess 

 all the intellectual tendencies and powers of its parents. Only when 

 some action is repeated generation after generation does it produce so 

 strong an impress upon the intellect as to be hereditarily transmitted. 

 In this case we have the inhei'itance of an instinct, or strong special 

 mental tendency. 



It is evident that among social animals acts of special shrewdness 

 performed by any individual are likely to be seen and may be imi- 

 tated by others. In such cases an educational is added to the heredi- 

 tary method of intellectual transmission. Any such acts, if of special 

 value to the community, may be very frequently repeated, and if the 

 community be long kept together it may make important steps of 

 progress in this method alone. When, again, communities pass from 

 the social to the communal phase of association the influence above 

 mentioned must act with much greater vigor. For the members of 

 communal are much more closely associated than those of social groups. 

 They work more together, and are brought into more intimate associa- 

 tion in all the details of life. It is claimed by some writers that the 

 young actually go to school to the old, and are specially taught the 

 duties of the hive and the ant-hill.* In addition to this there is much 

 reason to believe that the communities of communal animals are often 

 continuous for a very long period of time. The ant city does not die 

 out with one generation, but may continue in existence through an 

 indefinite number of generations. The bee family sends out its annual 

 swarms, but the young before this migration are old enough to have 

 been taught all the duties of bee-life. Thus the special habits of a 

 single original hive may be transmitted, in the educational method, to 

 an indefinite number of much later hives. Parallel conditions are 

 known to exist among the beavers. The condition is similar to that 

 of an overcrowded human community, whose younger members migrate 

 in search of a new home, but not until they have learned all the arts 

 of the parental community. 



Communalism, therefore, has its special value as an aid to the trans- 

 mission of knowledge and useful habits through teaching and observa- 



* Romanes says that the "house-bees" are the younger bees left at home, for domes- 

 tic duties, with only a small proportion of older ones, left probably to direct the young. 

 The young ant " is led about the nest, and trained to a knowledge of domestic duties, 

 especially in the case of larvae. Later on the young ants are taught to distinguish between 

 friends and foes. When an ant-nest is attacked by foreign ants the young ants never join 

 in the fight, but confine themselves to removing the pupte." In a nest made by Forel of 

 young ants and pupae of different species, no hostility arose. They dwelt together as a 

 happy family. They had not been educated into hostility to foreigners. Lubbock says, 

 " It is remarkable how much individual ants appear to differ from one another in char- 

 acter." There is thus a natural basis for the development of new habits. 



