THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS 305 



the list of those whose ways are thoroughly known. 

 But, looking broadly at Nature, one general fact 

 is striking — the more social animals are in over- 

 whelming preponderance over the unsocial. Mr. 

 Darwin's dictum, that " those communities which 

 included the greatest number of the most sym- 

 pathetic members would flourish best" is wholly 

 proved. Run over the names of the commoner or 

 more dominant mammals, and it will be found that 

 they are those which have at least a measure of 

 sociability. The cat-tribe excepted, nearly all live 

 together in herds or troops — the elephant, for in- 

 stance, the buffalo, deer, antelope, wild-goat, sheep, 

 wolf, jackal, reindeer, hippopotamus, zebra, hyena, 

 and seal. These are mammals^ observe — an associa- 

 tion of sociability in its highest developments with 

 reproductive specialization. Cases undoubtedly exist 

 where the sociability may not be referable primarily 

 to this function ; but in most the chief Co-operations 

 are centred in Love. So advantageous are all forms 

 of mutual service that the question may be fairly 

 asked, whether after all Co-operation and Sympathy 

 — at first instinctive, afterwards reasoned — are not 

 the greatest facts even in organic Nature? To quote 

 the words of Prince Kropotkin : "As soon as we 

 study animals — not in laboratories and museums 

 only, but in the forest and the prairie, in the steppes 



