ASSOCIATION 103 



Life ill societies is the most powerful weapon in tlie^ 

 struggle for life. Horses, although badly organized on 

 the whole for resisting their enemies and the adverse 

 conditions of climate, would soon have been exterminated 

 were it not for llieir sociable si)irit. The wolf and the 

 bear cannot cai)tiire a horse mdess the animal becomes 

 detached from the herd. If a beast of prey approaches, 

 several studs unite at once and repulse the beast, some- 

 times even chasing it. When a snowstorm rages, studs 

 crowd together and the warmth of their several bodies 

 keeps them from freezing. If the group disperses, the 

 horses perish and the survivors are found after the 

 storm, half dying from fatigue."^ The common ant thrives 

 without having any of the protective features which ani- 

 mals living in isolated life possess. Its color renders it 

 conspicuous and its sting is not formidable. Yet ants are 

 dreaded by most stronger insects. Their most important 

 source of strength consists in the maintenance of a highly 

 cooperative group life. The animals which know best 

 how to coml)ine have tlie greatest chances for further 

 evolution, even though fhey may be inferior to others in 

 each of the faculties enumerated by Darwin and Wallace, 

 save in the intellectual faculty.'* This last is generally 

 admitted to be the most ]iowerful aid in the struggle for 

 existence. But th e intellectual faculty is eminently a 

 social faculty. ^Language, imitation, and accumulated 

 experience are so many elements of growing intelligence 

 of which the unsociable aninifll is^ deprived." For this 

 reason we find at the top of each class of animals, those 

 which combine the greatest sociability with the highest 

 development of intelligence. ^The fittest are thus the 

 most sociable animals, and sociability appears as the chief 



sKropntkin. P.— .1/)//»a/ Aid. I'MU. p. 47. * Ibid. 



