THE BEGINNINGS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION 129 



conditions, and inasmuch as the environment controls 

 evolution, we may say that man has thus artificially 

 controlled his own evolution. This fact, rather than 

 intelligence, is his distinctive attribute. Man has 

 some attribute that has enabled, or rather forced 

 him to organize society. "Without it he might, in- 

 deed, have become an intelligent animal, but with 

 it he becomes man and dominates nature. It is our 

 purpose next to look for the force or forces that 

 have produced society, and which, therefore, most 

 distinctively separate mankind from the animal 

 kingdom. 



Before we can consider the question of the laws 

 that have produced social evolution we must try to 

 get before our minds the salient features of that 

 evolution. The history of social evolution has been 

 nothing more than the history of mankind, and to 

 attempt a universal history is, of course, not our 

 purpose. But it may be possible in a comparatively 

 brief space to extract from that history enough of 

 its prominent features to get a tolerably fair picture 

 of its broad scope. At all events, it will be the en- 

 deavor of this chapter to present a bird's-eye view 

 of the rise and development of the social organism. 



Family Life Among Animals 



As already noticed, the family was the start of 

 human civilization. The question of family life 

 among animals below man is one of interest, but one 

 concerning which we have no space to give extended 

 discussion. Among the invertebrates there are no 

 traces of anything that can properly be called 

 family life, unless colonies of insects may in a modi- 

 fied way be considered as representing it. These 



