170 Animal Sociability. 



rabbits stamp on tlie ground with their hindfeet ; 

 and the chamois, as the hunter in Tell knows, 

 stamp with their forefeet, whistling at the same 

 time. Animals also assist one another in sick 

 ness or distress, even at the risk of life. An 

 Abyssinian baboon once returned alone to a pack 

 of dogs that had driven off his troop and carried 

 away a young baboon which, left behind in the 

 rout, was calling piteously for aid. Besides love 

 and sympathy, social animals exhibit self-control, 

 fidelity to one another, and obedience to the 

 leader. The complex tissue of sociability is prob 

 ably an extension of the parental and filial affec 

 tions, originating, like them, in the action of 

 natural selection. Under the same imperious 

 law, sympathy, too, has been developed, if not ac 

 quired ; for the most sympathetic animals would 

 flourish best and rear the greatest number of 

 offspring. In case of a conflict between impulses 

 or instincts, it is manifest that in the struggle 

 for life the one most beneficial to the species 

 must in the long run triumph. What if con 

 science were but such a persistent social instinct ? f 

 We must turn to man to see. 



Man is a social animal. And if we may argue 

 from the analogy of the majority of the quadru- 

 mana, his ancestors as far back as the simian stage 



