MUTUAL AID AND COMMUNAL LIFE AMONG ANIMALS 397 



The increase of intelligence, the development of the power 

 of reasoning, is the most potent factor in the development of 

 a highly specialized social life. Man is the example of the 

 highest development of this sort in the animal kingdom, but 

 the highest form of social development is not by any means the 

 most perfectly communal. 



The advantages of communal or social life, of cooperation 

 and mutual aid, are real. The animals that have adopted 

 such a life are among the most successful of all animals in the 

 struggle for existence. The termite individual is one of the 

 most defenseless, and, for those animals that prey on insects, 

 one of the most toothsome luxuries to be found in the insect 

 world. But the termite is one of the most abundant and 

 widespread and successfully living insect kinds in all the tropics. 

 Where ants are not, few insects are. The honeybee is a popu- 

 lar type of a successful life. The artificial protection afforded 

 the honeybee by man may aid in its struggle for existence, but 

 it gains this protection because of certain features of its com- 

 munal life, and in Nature the honeybee takes care of itself 

 well. The Little Bee People of Kipling's Jungle Book, who 

 live in great communities in the rocks of Indian hills, can put to 

 rout the largest and fiercest of the jungle animals. Coopera- 

 tion and mutual aid are among the most important factors 

 which help in the struggle for existence. Its great advantages 

 are, however, in some degree balanced by the fact that mutual 

 help brings mutual dependence. The community or society 

 can accomplish greater things than the solitary individuals, 

 but cooperation limits freedom, and often sacrifices the indi- 

 vidual to the whole. 



