I3I0 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



The solitary or individualistic mode of life is illustrated in Britain 

 by wild cat, fox, otter, badger, pine marten, stoat, weasel, hedgehog, 

 mole, shrew, hare, squirrel, and dormouse — a very attractive set 

 of animals, much more attractive than the gregarious types, rabbits, 

 rats, mice, voles, and bats, with the single exception of the deer. 

 But we have to correct this in other countries, remembering the 

 cleverness and loquacity of monkeys, the wisdom of the elephants, 

 the intelligence and adventurousness of wild horses, the defence of 

 the young among gregarious ruminants, the kin-sympathy of the 

 prairie-dogs, and so on. We must not pick and choose when we seek 

 corroboration from the animal world. 



Similarly when we admire the effectiveness, the intelligence, the 

 kin-sympathy of elephants, wild horses, beavers, wolves, parrots, 

 cranes, and so on, we must not give aU the credit to the mode of 

 life. For in the first place, there is probably some prerequisite to 

 close co-operation, some fineness of material, necessary to start with, 

 as in monkey and elephant, horse and beaver, crane and parrot; 

 and in the second place, there is often a considerable degree of 

 commonplace gregariousness without any marked enhancement of 

 the animal's qualities, as may be illustrated by rabbits, rats, and 

 sparrows. Often, indeed, the co-operative animal has a suggestion 

 of inferiority, simply because the sociality is a shield to types 

 which are not individually very strong, such as mice and slave- 

 keeping ants. 



When we consider the co-operative or societary mode of life in its 

 many grades, we cannot but admire the way in which it secures 

 stability in the struggle for existence, the increased economy and 

 efficiency, the possibility of permanent products and tradition, the 

 kin-sympathy and socialised self -subordination, the shield thrown 

 over individual variations and tentatives. It is plain that human 

 progress must largely lie along the co-operative line of evolution. 



Yet on the "each for himself" mode of life there evolve notable 

 good qualities: sturdy independence, resolute all-roundness, origin- 

 ality, and a certain fullness of life — until the struggle becomes too 

 intense. Thus it becomes one of the deepest problems of the states- 

 man to guide the communal co-operative evolution so that it does 

 not involve jettisoning the rewards of competitive individualism. 

 That neither man nor bee has solved this problem is painfully 

 evident. 



Here indeed we may learn afresh from the flowers, with their 

 range from the solitary extremes of individualism, as in the 

 anemone or the tulip, to the crowded bouquets of the Composites; 

 and even to far extremer repression of the individual flowers, as 

 within the common fig. Flora in her world-garden has thus 

 encouraged all types, individualistic and socialistic, and each at all 

 levels of perfection and beauty of their kind. 



