COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY. 603 



even by those who have given but a superficial attention to the subject, 

 that there is a connection between corporeal development and historical 

 career ; that those races who have led the way in the course of civiliza- 

 tion, and those who still remain in the savage state, are characterized by 

 striking anatomical peculiarities, particularly in the size and development 

 of their cerebral hemispheres. Such general conclusions are strengthened 

 by our observations on the animal series, the lower members of which 

 offer together a sameness of structure and an identity in their course of 

 life. In those the metamorphoses of which have been stud- Structure and 

 led, it is always noticed that every change of structure is at habit in the 

 once/ollowed by a change of habit, yet, during the continuance case of msects - 

 of a given condition, their manner of life is without any variation. The 

 actions of one insect are for the most part the actions of another of the 

 same kind and in the same state, whether larva, pupa, or imago. But 

 in the midst of all this automatism there are, however, the glimmerings 

 of a free will. The animal world presents forcible illustrations on every 

 hand on the connection of structure and habit. 



Philosophical views of human sociology are only to be attained by 

 treating that great problem in the same manner that we have comparative 

 learned to treat so many others in physiology. We must in- sociology. 

 elude in our discussion all other animal races, and not close our eyes to 

 the fact that there is such a thing as comparative sociology. We ob- 

 serve the republican propensities of the ant, the monarchical life of bees, 

 the solitary habit of other tribes. Is it not, at least in part, because of 

 cerebral peculiarities that one kind of bird is polygamous, and another 

 observes an annual or perpetual monogamy ; that the buffalo delights in 

 the society of his kind, but the lion will tolerate no neighbor ; that the 

 horse runs in herds, and adopts an organized system, submitting to a cap- 

 tain whose motions he follows ? We can not suppose that these habits 

 are the sole result of a present and immediately active external influence 

 which calls them forth ; an internal influence is also at work, an internal 

 influence dependent on organization. 



A discussion of the problem of human sociology could, therefore, only 

 be completed after a study of the same problem in the entire animal se- 

 ries a task requiring varied and profound knowledge of natural his- 

 tory and comparative anatomy. Indeed, the present state of these sci- 

 ences does not enable us to accomplish it. The remarks I am about to 

 make are, therefore, of a very imperfect kind. The social problems pre- 

 sented to us by animals are a fitting introduction to the social problems 

 of man. 



For the clearer understanding of what follows, it may Distinction be _ 

 therefore be observed that we may receive the term instinct tween instinct 

 as indicating a faculty incapable of improvement, and possess- 



