HISTORY AND NATURAL HISTORY 25 



world for at least fifty years previous there had been 

 growing a similar conviction among certain heretics. 



In 1930, after having written the text of a care- 

 ful account of experimental evidence concerning the 

 existence and non-existence of co-operation at sub- 

 social levels, (3) I set down in the draft of a proposed 

 preface that the existence of such a principle was 

 now for the first time an established fact, for which 

 the details to follow gave full proof. I still think 

 that the proof is good. However, the preface as 

 published does not contain any such claim, for at 

 that point in the writing I went back and re-read 

 Des societes animales by the French scientist Es- 

 pinas, (44) which appeared in 1878 and which was 

 the pioneering essay in this field so far as modern 

 work is concerned. There I found Espinas affirming 

 that no living being is solitary, but that from the 

 lowest to the highest each is normally immersed in 

 some sort of social life, a fact which he proclaimed 

 sixty years ago, and added that he was ready to offer 

 conclusive proof. 



I turned through the pages past his detailed his- 

 tory of the evolution of ideas about the origin and 

 development of society, and read his massed evi- 

 dence that communal life is not "a restricted acci- 

 dental condition found only among such privileged 



