Cooperative System Amongst Lower Animals 777 



If we now try to ascertain the factors that have operated 

 in giving to such comparatively defenseless animals as the 

 horse, the sheep, the goat, and the bison their widespread 

 persistence and abundance till man appeared on the scene, 

 it will be found that at least the following are all cooperative: 

 (a) numbers can usually in the end overcome isolated effort 

 even of a fierce adversary; (b) the sight of a host of individuals 

 has a retarding effect even on a bold intruder; (c) though 

 some individuals may be cut off on the edge of a flock there is 

 a sense of solidarity and increased safety in numbers. And 

 here sacrifice as a virtue begins to develop, reaching its climax 

 in man; (d) the constant tendency to shield the young of a 

 flock gives to these an increased chance of survival, and thus 

 of ensuring added and vigorous youth to the species. So 

 even far dowoi in the animal scale the three cardinal social 

 and cooperative principles, love, sympathy, and sacrifice, become 

 operative. These must ever constitute the foundation tripod 

 on which every cooperative structure is built. 



We recognize all three in operation when an ant's nest is 

 attacked, when a herd of cattle is face to face with a common 

 foe, when a band of monkeys is menaced by some aggressive 

 mammalian opponent. Unfortunately man has hitherto sel- 

 fishly tried to usurp credit for the possession of all the finer 

 feelings and mental traits, so that he has given small credit 

 to animals below him for the initiation and gradual extension 

 of those qualities that now characterize him to a marked degree. 



Primitive man then, as a descendant of the higher apes, 

 inherited long-drawn ancestral experiences and mental ten- 

 dencies toward social organization, at the same time that his 

 struggles with many of the larger j^redatory and competitive 

 animals around, the tiger, the lion, the bear, the wolf, and the 

 crocodile, often inclined him to competitive and aggressive 

 habits, as indicated by the cave remains of France and else- 

 where. But, from the primitive and only recently extinct 

 Tasmanian savage, whose biological relation was essentially 

 that of the earlier stone-age, up to the highest civilized nation 

 of the present day, the most fundamental characteristic has 



25* 



