THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. 155 



One of the earliest devices hit upon in the course of 

 Evolution was the principle of co-operation. Long 

 before men had learned to form themselves into tribes 

 and clans for mutual strength and service, gregarious- 

 ness was an established institution. The deer had 

 formed themselves into herds, and the monkeys into 

 troops; the birds were in flocks, and the wolves in 

 packs; the bees in hives, and the ants in colonies. 

 And so abundant and dominant in every part of the 

 world are these social types to-day that we may be 

 sure the gregarious state has exceptional advantages 

 in the upward struggle. 



One of these advantages, obviously, is the mere 

 physical strength of numbers. But there is another 

 and a much more important one — the mental strength 

 of a combination. Here is a herd of deer, scattered, 

 as they love to be, in a string, quarter of a mile long. 

 Every animal in the herd not only shares the physical 

 strength of all the rest, but their powers of observa- 

 tion. Its foresight in presence of possible danger is 

 the foresight of the herd. It has as many eyes as the 

 herd, as many ears, as many organs of smell, its 

 nervous system extends throughout the whole space 

 covered by the line ; its environment, in short, is not 

 only what it hears, sees, smells, touches, tastes, but 

 what every single member hears, sees, smells, touches, 

 tastes. This means an enormous advantage in the 

 Struggle for Life. What deer have to arm themselves 

 most against is surprise. When it conies to an actual 

 fight, comrades are of little use. At that crisis the 

 others run away and leave the victims to their fate. 

 But in helping one another to avert that crisis, the 

 value of this mutual aid is so great that gregarious 



