ECOLOGICAL 129 



together in considerable numbers. Yet there may be a huge con- 

 gregation, to return to the mites in the cheese, without any hint 

 of sociality. A prettier picture may be found in the crowd of jelly- 

 fishes often seen slowly moving in a summer sea. They certainly 

 form no fleet, as a school of dolphins may be said to do. 



Negatively again, the formation of a society implies that the quest 

 for food is of a type that allows of numerous co-operators, that the 

 food is of such a nature that a large supply is available within an 

 area relatively small in proportion to the means of locomotion and 

 transport, and that storage is possible should the year include a 

 season during which food is unprocurable. 



9. If these conditions are fulfilled there are two main ways 

 in which animal societies may arise. As already indicated, the 

 evolution of the social habit on instinctive lines, as in ants, bees, 

 and wasps, may be traced back to a lengthening out of the period 

 of vigorous maternity, so that successive sets of offspring are pro- 

 duced in rapid sequence, among which division of labour — partly 

 variational and partly modificational — may arise and prove a notable 

 source of strength. On the other hand, among birds and mammals, 

 that is to say in societies more intelligent than instinctive, the evo- 

 lution is slightly different, for it implies the combination of several, 

 it may be many, families. It is more likely to arise in circumstances 

 where corporate or integrated action has obvious survival value; 

 e.g. in concerted defence against enemies. It is assisted not only by 

 division of labour, but by sounds, virtually words, and other social 

 signals and symbols, by the traditional growth of conventions, and 

 in some cases by the accumulation of permanent products. Yet 

 when all is said, it seems clear that the social habit is only for the 

 elite. There are only 500 species of social bees amidst a total of ten 

 thousand, and the distinctively social mammals are in a small 

 minority. If man appeals to the Animal World for corroboration or 

 condemnation of his ways of living, what can the answer be save 

 that the two policies — the each-for-himself or individualistic and 

 the co-operative or socialistic — are both effective? Each has its 

 advantages and its dangers. For certain ends the otter is to be 

 imitated, and for other ends the beaver. The ecological judgment 

 is not in favour of socialisation only or individualism only, it 

 recommends both in judicious complement ariness. 



10. We cannot conclude our inquiry without a warning against 

 that type of over-simplification which regards the study of human 

 societies as part of the ecology of mammals. That is a "biologism", 

 just as it is a materialism to insist that life is adequately describable 

 in chemico-physical terms. It must be recognised that a human 

 society stands high above all the integrates that we may study among 

 the beasts of the field. Man has language, rising high above animal 

 words ; he commonly displays reason or the capacity for conceptual 



VOL. I " . K 



