104 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



factor of evolution, both directly, by securing the well- 

 being of the species while diminishing the waste of energy, 

 and indirectly, by favoring the growth of intelligence." 5 



Thus it was that thousands of years before man ap- 

 peared, association was preparing the way for human 

 society. Association was a chief cause of the develop- 

 ment of intelligence and of the power to cooperate. 

 Moreover, social life developed with a progressive weed- 

 ing out of unsocial creatures which thereby became a 

 more easy prey to physical forces and living enemies. 6 

 Association not only endowed certain species with the 

 mental capacity that was eventually to make one of them 

 the master, but it developed the social instincts of all 

 the others to such a degree that they could become useful 

 cooperators with mankind. The teachable disposition 

 acquired by certain animals from their age long experi- 

 ence of social life made domestication a possibility. 

 Later we shall see that domesticated animals made possi- 

 ble civilization. In this way the enormous importance 

 of domestication is apparent. 



The savage peoples of the present day live in groups, 

 and all the remains of prehistoric men show that they too 

 lived in groups. There is no reason to believe that the 

 anthropoid precursor of man was ail unsocial animal. 

 Indeed, the mental differences that mark men off from 

 other creatures are those that are created by social dis- 

 course. Speech in particular, an attainment that has 

 given man his preeminence among other animals, is dis- 

 tinctly a social creation. Since association and sociabil- 

 ity have been such all-important factors in the mental 

 evolution of mankind we shall consider the advantages 

 that accrue from social life. 



5 Ibid. e Giddings, op. cit., pp. 204-207. 



