106 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



The third chapter deals with ''Mutual Aid 

 Among Savages." Here we meet the question 

 as to whether the family is an ancient insti- 

 tution, antedating the tribe and clan or 

 whether it appeared at a much later date as 

 an outgrowth of the clan. Kropotkin takes 

 the latter view as advocated by Morgan, Ba- 

 chofen, Maine, Lubbock and Tylor, and re- 

 jects the former as presented by Starcke and 

 Westermarck. 



The savage of anthropological research is 

 shown to be a very different creature from the 

 blood-thirsty monster of popular tradition. 

 "Sometimes he is a cannibal, it is true, but not 

 often, and then it is closely associated with 

 economic necessity, and is abandoned when 

 food becomes plentiful." The custom of leav- 

 ing old men in the woods to die, is bad 

 enough, but not so bad as supposed. They 

 usually carry the old man with them in their 

 migrations until he himself grows tired of be- 

 ing a burden and begs to be killed. When 

 this point is reached, he is given more than 

 his share of food, and left in the woods to 

 die, because no one has the heart to kill him. 

 Infanticide is practiced from the same motive 

 which induces savages to take all kinds of 

 measures for diminishing the birth-rate — they 

 cannot rear all of their children. In times 



