Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Peter Kropotkin
1902

APPENDIX





        I -- SWARMS OF BUTTERFLIES, DRAGON-FLIES, ETC.

                    (To p. 10)



    M.C. PIEPERS has published in Natuurkunding Tijdschrift voor

Neederlandsch Indië, 1891, Deel L. p. 198 (analyzed in

Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau, 1891, vol. vi. p. 573),

interesting researches into the mass-flights of butterflies which

occur in Dutch East India, seemingly under the influence of great

draughts occasioned by the west monsoon. Such mass-flights

usually take place in the first months after the beginning of the

monsoon, and it is usually individuals of both sexes of

Catopsilia (Callidryas) crocale, Cr., which join in it, but

occasionally the swarms consist of individuals belonging to three

different species of the genus Euphoea. Copulation seems also to

be the purpose of such flights. That these flights are not the

result of concerted action but rather a consequence of imitation,

or of a desire of following all others, is, of course, quite

possible.

    Bates saw, on the Amazon, the yellow and the orange

Callidryas "assembling in densely packed masses, sometimes two or

three yards in circumference, their wings all held in an upright

position, so that the beach looked as though variegated with beds

of crocuses." Their migrating columns, crossing the river from

north to south, "were uninterrupted, from an early hour in the

morning till sunset" (Naturalist on the Amazon, p. 131).

    Dragon-flies, in their long migrations across the Pampas,

come together in countless numbers, and their immense swarms

contain individuals belonging to different species (Hudson,

Naturalist on the La Plata, pp. 130 seq.).

     The grasshoppers (Zoniopoda tarsata) are also eminently

gregarious (Hudson, l.c. p. 125).



                        II -- THE ANTS.

                            (To p. 13)



    Pierre Huber's Les fourmis indigènes (Genève, 1810), of which

a cheap edition was issued in 1861 by Cherbuliez, in the

Bibliothèque Genevoise, and of which translations ought to be

circulated in cheap editions in every language, is not only the

best work on the subject, but also a model of really scientific

research. Darwin was quite right in describing Pierre Huber as an

even greater naturalist than his father. This book ought to be

read by every young naturalist, not only for the facts it

contains but as a lesson in the methods of research. The rearing

of ants in artificial glass nests, and the test experiments made

by subsequent explorers, including Lubbock, will all be found in

Huber's admirable little work. Readers of the books of Forel and

Lubbock are, of course, aware that both the Swiss professor and

the British writer began their work in a critical mood, with the

intention of disproving Huber's assertions concerning the

admirable mutual-aid instincts of the ants; but that after a

careful investigation they could only confirm them. However, it

is unfortunately characteristic of human nature gladly to believe

any affirmation concerning men being able to change at will the

action of the forces of Nature, but to refuse to admit

well-proved scientific facts tending to reduce the distance

between man and his animal brothers.

    Mr. Sutherland (Origin and Growth of Moral Instinct)

evidently began his book with the intention of proving that all

moral feelings have originated from parental care and familial

love, which both appeared only in warm-blooded animals;

consequently he tries to minimize the importance of sympathy and

co-operation among ants. He quotes Büchner's book, Mind in

Animals, and knows Lubbock's experiments. As to the works of

Huber and Forel, he dismisses them in the following sentence;

"but they [Büchner's instances of sympathy among ants] are all,

or mostly all, marred by a certain air of sentimentalism... which

renders them better suited for school books than for cautious

works of science, and the same is to be remarked [italics are

mine] of some of Huber's and Forel's best-known anecdotes" (vol.

i. p. 298).

    Mr. Sutherland does not specify which "anecdotes" he means,

but it seems to me that he could never have had the opportunity

of perusing the works of Huber and Forel. Naturalists who know

these works find no "anecdotes" in them.

    The recent work of Professor Gottfried Adlerz on the ants in

Sweden (Myrmecologiska Studier: Svenska Myror och des

Lefnadsförhallanden, in Bihan till Svenska A kademiens

Handlingar, Bd. xi. No. 18, 1886) may be mentioned in this place.

It hardly need be said that all the observations of Huber and

Forel concerning the mutual-aid life of ants, including the one

concerning the sharing of food, felt to be so striking by those

who previously had paid no attention to the subject, are fully

confirmed by the Swedish professor (pp. 136-137).

    Professor G. Adlerz gives also very interesting experiments

to prove what Huber had already observed; namely, that ants from

two different nests do not always attack each other. He has made

one of his experiments with the ant, Tapinoma erraticum. Another

was made with the common Rufa ant. Taking a whole nest in a sack,

he emptied it at a distance of six feet from another nest. There

was no battle, but the ants of the second nest began to carry the

pupae of the former. As a rule, when Professor Adlerz brought

together workers with their pupae, both taken from different

nests, there was no battle; but if the workers were without their

pupae, a battle ensued (pp. 185-186).

    He also completes Forel's and MacCook's observations about

the "nations" of ants, composed of many nests, and, taking his

own estimates, which brought him to take an average of 300,000

Formica exsecta ants in each nest, he concludes that such

"nations" may reach scores and even hundreds of millions of

inhabitants.

    Maeterlinck's admirably written book on bees, although it

contains no new observations, would be very useful, if it were

less marred with metaphysical "words."







            III. -- NESTING ASSOCIATIONS.

                        (To p. 35)





    Audubon's Journals (Audubon and his Journals, New York,

1898), especially those relating to his life on the coasts of

Labrador and the St. Lawrence river in the thirties, contain

excellent descriptions of the nesting associations of aquatic

birds. Speaking of "The Rock," one of the Magdalene or Amherst

Islands, he wrote: -- "At eleven I could distinguish its top

plainly from the deck, and thought it covered with snow to the

depth of several feet; this appearance existed on every portion

of the flat, projecting shelves. "But it was not snow: it was

gannets, all calmly seated on their eggs or newly-hatched

brood-their heads all turned windwards, almost touching each

other, and in regular lines. The air above, for a hundred yards

and for some distance round the rock, "was filled with gannets on

the wing, as if a heavy fall of snow was directly above us."

Kittiwake gulls and foolish guillemots bred on the same rock

(Journals, vol. i. pp. 360-363).

    In sight of Anticosti Island, the sea "was literally covered

with foolish guillemots and with razorbilled auks (Alca torva)."

Further on, the air was filled with velvet ducks. On the rocks of

the Gulf, the herring gulls, the terns (great, Arctic, and

probably Foster's), the Tringa pusilla, the sea-gulls, the auks,

the Scoter ducks, the wild geese (Anser canadensis), the

red-breasted merganser, the cormorants, etc., were all breeding.

The sea-gulls were extremely abundant there; "they are for ever

harassing every other bird, sucking their eggs and devouring

their young;" "they take here the place of eagles and hawks."

    On the Missouri, above Saint Louis, Audubon saw, in 1843,

vultures and eagles nesting in colonies. Thus he mentioned "long

lines of elevated shore, surmounted by stupendous rocks of

limestone, with many curious holes in them, where we saw vultures

and eagles enter towards dusk" -- that is, Turkey buzzards

(Cathartes aura) and bald eagles (Haliaëtus leucocephalus), E.

Couës remarks in a footnote (vol. i. p. 458).

    One of the best breeding-grounds along the British shores are

the Farne Islands, and one will find in Charles Dixon's work,

Among the Birds in Northern Shires, a lively description of these

grounds, where scores of thousands of gulls, terns, eider-ducks,

cormorants, ringed plovers, oyster-catchers, guillemots, and

puffins come together every year. "On approaching some of the

islands the first impression is that this gull (the lesser

black-backed gull) monopolizes the whole of the ground, as it

occurs in such vast abundance. The air seems full of them, the

ground and bare rocks are crowded; and as our boat finally grates

against the rough beach and we eagerly jump ashore all becomes

noisy excitement -- a perfect babel of protesting cries that is

persistently kept up until we leave the place" (p. 219).







        IV -SOCIABILITY OF ANIMALS.

                (To p. 42.)



    That the sociability of animals was greater when they were

less hunted by man, is confirmed by many facts showing that those

animals who now live isolated in countries inhabited by man

continue to live in herds in uninhabited regions. Thus on the

waterless plateau deserts of Northern Thibet Prjevalsky found

bears living in societies. He mentions numerous "herds of yaks,

khulans, antelopes, and even bears." The latter, he says, feed

upon the extremely numerous small rodents, and are so numerous

that, "as the natives assured me, they have found a hundred or a

hundred and fifty of them asleep in the same cave" (Yearly Report

of the Russian Geographical Society for 1885, p. 11; Russian).

Hares (Lepus Lehmani) live in large societies in the Transcaspian

territory (N. Zarudnyi, Recherches zoologiques dans la contrée

Transcaspienne, in Bull. Soc. Natur. Moscou, 1889, 4). The small

Californian foxes, who, according to E.S. Holden, live round the

Lick observatory "on a mixed diet of Manzanita berries and

astronomers' chickens" (Nature, Nov. 5, 1891), seem also to be

very sociable.

    Some very interesting instances of the love of society among

animals have lately been given by Mr. C.J. Cornish (Animals at

Work and Play, London, 1896). All animals, he truly remarks, hate

solitude. He gives also an amusing instance of the habit of the

prairie dogs of keeping sentries. It is so great that they always

keep a sentinel on duty, even at the London Zoological Garden,

and in the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation (p. 46).

    Professor Kessler was quite right in pointing out that the

young broods of birds, keeping together in autumn, contribute to

the development of feelings of sociability. Mr. Cornish (Animals

at Work and Play) has given several examples of the plays of

young mammals, such as, for instance, lambs playing at "follow my

leader," or at "I'm the king of the castle," and their love of

steeplechases; also the fawns playing a kind of "cross-touch,"

the touch being given by the nose. Altogether we have, moreover,

the excellent work by Karl Gross, The Play of Animals. 









    V.-CHECKS TO OVER-MULTIPLICATION.

            (To p. 72.)



    Hudson, in his Naturalist on the La Plata (Chapter III), has

a very interesting account of a sudden increase of a species of

mice and of the consequences of that sudden "wave of life." "In

the summer of 1872-73," he writes, "we had plenty of sunshine,

with frequent showers, so that the hot months brought no dearth

of wild flowers, as in most years." The season was very

favourable for mice, and "these prolific little creatures were

soon so abundant that the dogs and the cats subsisted almost

exclusively on them. Foxes, weasels and opossums fared

sumptuously; even the insectivorous armadillo took to

mice-hunting." The fowls became quite rapacious, "while the

sulphur tyrant-birds (Pitangus) and the Guira cuckoos preyed on

nothing but mice." In the autumn, countless numbers of storks and

of short-eared owls made their appearance, coming also to assist

at the general feast. Next came a winter of continued drought;

the dry grass was eaten, or turned to dust; and the mice,

deprived of cover and food, began to die out. The cats sneaked

back to the houses; the short-eared owls -- a wandering species

-- left; while the little burrowing owls became so reduced as

scarcely to be able to fly, "and hung about the houses all day

long on the look-out for some stray morsel of food. "Incredible

numbers of sheep and cattle perished the same winter, during a

month of cold that followed the drought. As to the mice, Hudson

makes the remark that "scarcely a hard-pressed remnant remains

after the great reaction, to continue the species."

    This illustration has an additional interest in its showing

how, on flat plains and plateaus, the sudden increase of a

species immediately attracts enemies from other parts of the

plains, and how species unprotected by their social organization

must necessarily succumb before them. 

    Another excellent illustration in point is given by the same

author from the Argentine Republic. The coypù (Myiopotamus coypù)

is there a very common rodent -- a rat in shape, but as large as

an otter. It is aquatic in its habits and very sociable. "Of an

evening," Hudson writes, "they are all out swimming and playing

in the water, conversing together in strange tunes, which sound

like the moans and cries of wounded and suffering men. The coypù,

which has a fine fur under the long coarse hair, was largely

exported to Europe; but some sixty years ago the Dictator Rosas

issued a decree prohibiting the hunting of this animal. The

result was that the animals increased and multiplied exceedingly,

and, abandoning their aquatic habits, they became terrestrial and

migratory, and swarmed everywhere in search of food. Suddenly a

mysterious malady fell on them, from which they quickly perished,

and became almost extinct" (p. 12).

    Extermination by man on the one side, and contagious diseases

on the other side, are thus the main checks which keep the

species down -- not competition for the means of existence, which

may not exist at all.

    Facts, proving that regions enjoying a far more congenial

climate than Siberia are equally underpopulated, could be

produced in numbers. But in Bates' well-known work we find the

same remark concerning even the shores of the Amazon river.

    "There is, in fact," Bates wrote, "a great variety of

mammals, birds and reptiles, but they are widely scattered and

all excessively shy of man. The region is so extensive and

uniform in the forest-clothing of its surface, that it is only at

long intervals that animals are seen in abundance, where some

particular spot is found which is more attractive than the

others" (Naturalist on the Amazon, 6th ed., p. 31).

    This fact is the more striking as the Brazilian fauna, which

is poor in mammals, is not poor at all in birds, and the

Brazilian forests afford ample food for birds, as may be seen

from a quotation, already given on a previous page, about birds'

societies. And yet, the forests of Brazil, like those of Asia and

Africa, are not overpopulated, but rather under-populated. The

same is true concerning the pampas of South America, about which

W.H. Hudson remarks that it is really astonishing that only one

small ruminant should be found on this immense grassy area, so

admirably suited to herbivorous quadrupeds. Millions of sheep,

cattle and horses, introduced by man, graze now, as is known,

upon a portion of these prairies. Land-birds on the pampas are

also few in species and in numbers.





        VI -- ADAPTATIONS TO AVOID COMPETITION.

                    (To p. 75)



    Numerous examples of such adaptations can be found in the

works of all field-naturalists. One of them, very interesting,

may be given in the hairy armadillo, of which W.H. Hudson says,

that "it has struck a line for itself, and consequently. thrives,

while its congeners are fast disappearing. Its food is most

varied. It preys on all kinds of insects, discovering worms and

larvae several inches beneath the surface. It is fond of eggs and

fledglings; it feeds on carrion as readily as a vulture; and,

failing animal food, it subsists on vegetable diet-clover, and

even grains of maize. Therefore, when other animals are starving,

the hairy armadillo is always fat and vigorous" (Naturalist on

the La Plata, p. 71).

    The adaptivity of the lapwing makes it a species of which the

range of extension is very wide. In England, it "makes itself at

home on arable land as readily as in wilder areas." Ch. Dixon

says in his Birds of Northern Shires (p. 67), "Variety of food is

still more the rule with the birds of prey." Thus, for instance,

we learn from the same author (pp. 60, 65), "that the hen harrier

of the British moors feeds not only on small birds, but also on

moles and mice, and on frogs, lizards and insects, while most of

the smaller falcons subsist largely on insects."

    The very suggestive chapter which W.H. Hudson gives to the

family of the South American treecreepers, or woodhewers, is

another excellent illustration of the ways in which large

portions of the animal population avoid competition, while at the

same time they succeed in becoming very numerous in a given

region, without being possessed of any of the weapons usually

considered as essential in the struggle for existence. The above

family covers an immense range, from South Mexico to Patagonia,

and no fewer than 290 species, referable to about 46 genera, are

already known from this family, the most striking feature of

which is the great diversity of habits of its members. Not only

the different genera and the different species possess habits

peculiarly their own, but even the same species is often found to

differ in its manner of life in different localities. "Some

species of Xenops and Magarornis, like woodpeckers, climb

vertically on tree-trunks in search of insect prey, but also,

like tits, explore the smaller twigs and foliage at the extremity

of the branches; so that the whole tree, from the root to its

topmost foliage, is hunted over by them. The Sclerurus, although

an inhabitant of the darkest forest, and provided with

sharply-curved claws, never seeks its food on trees, but

exclusively on the ground, among the decaying fallen leaves; but,

strangely enough, when alarmed, it flies to the trunk of the

nearest tree, to which it clings in a vertical position, and,

remaining silent and motionless, escapes observation by means of

its dark protective colour." And so on. In their nesting habits

they also vary immensely. Thus, in one single genus, three

species build an oven-shaped clay-nest, a fourth builds a nest of

sticks in the trees, and a fifth burrows in the side of a bank,

like a kingfisher.

    Now, this extremely large family, of which Hudson says that

"every portion of the South American continent is occupied by

them; for there is really no climate, and no kind of soil or

vegetation, which does not possess its appropriate species,

belongs" -- to use his own words -- "to the most defenceless of

birds." Like the ducks which were mentioned by Syevertsoff (see

in the text), they display no powerful beak or claws; "they are

timid, unresisting creatures, without strength or weapons; their

movements are less quick and vigorous than those of other kinds,

and their flight is exceedingly feeble." But they possess -- both

Hudson and Asara observe -- "the social disposition in an eminent

degree," although "the social habit is kept down in them by the

conditions of a life which makes solitude necessary." They cannot

make those large breeding associations which we see in the

sea-birds, because they live on the tree-insects, and they must

carefully explore separately every tree -- which they do in a

most business-like way; but they continually call each other in

the woods, "conversing with one another over long distances;" and

they associate in those "wandering bands" which are well known

from Bates' picturesque description, while Hudson was led to

believe "that everywhere in South America the Dendrocolaptidae

are the first in combining to act in concert, and that the birds

of other families follow their march and associate with them,

knowing from experience that a rich harvest may be reaped." It

hardly need be added that Hudson pays them also a high compliment

concerning their intelligence. Sociability and intelligence

always go hand in hand. 







    VII. -- THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY.

            (To p. 86.)



    At the time when I wrote the chapter inserted in the text, a

certain accord seemed to have been established amongst

anthropologists concerning the relatively late appearance, in the

institutions of men, of the patriarchal family, such as we know

it among the Hebrews, or in Imperial Rome. However, works have

been published since, in which the ideas promulgated by Bachofen

and MacLennan, systematized especially by Morgan, and further

developed and confirmed by Post, Maxim Kovalevsky, and Lubbock,

were contested -- the most important of such works being by the

Danish Professor, C.N. Starcke (Primitive Family, 1889), and by

the Helsingfors Professor, Edward Westermarck (The History of

Human Marriage, 1891; 2nd ed. 1894). The same has happened with

this question of primitive marriage institutions as it happened

with the question of the primitive land-ownership institutions.

When the ideas of Maurer and Nasse on the village community,

developed by quite a school of gifted explorers, and those of all

modern anthropologists upon the primitively communistic

constitution of the clan had nearly won general acceptance --

they called forth the appearance of such works as those of Fustel

de Coulanges in France, the Oxford Professor Seebohm in England,

and several others, in which an attempt was made -- with more

brilliancy than real depth of investigation -- to undermine these

ideas and to cast a doubt upon the conclusions arrived at by

modern research (see Prof. Vinogradov's Preface to his remarkable

work, Villainage in England). Similarly, when the ideas about the

non-existence of the family at the early tribal stage of mankind

began to be accepted by most anthropologists and students of

ancient law, they necessarily called forth such works as those of

Starcke and Westermarck, in which man was represented, in

accordance with the Hebrew tradition, as having started with the

family, evidently patriarchal, and never having passed through

the stages described by MacLennan, Bachofen, or Morgan. These

works, of which the brilliantly-written History of Human Marriage

has especially been widely read, have undoubtedly produced a

certain effect: those who have not had the opportunity of reading

the bulky volumes related to the controversy became hesitating;

while some anthropologists, well acquainted with the matter, like

the French Professor Durkheim, took a conciliatory, but somewhat

undefined attitude.

    For the special purpose of a work on Mutual Aid, this

controversy may be irrelevant. The fact that men have lived in

tribes from the earliest stages of mankind, is not contested,

even by those who feel shocked at the idea that man may have

passed through a stage when the family as we understand it did

not exist. The subject, however, has its own interest and

deserves to be mentioned, although it must be remarked that a

volume would be required to do it full justice.

    When we labour to lift the veil that conceals from us ancient

institutions, and especially such institutions as have prevailed

at the first appearance of beings of the human type, we are bound

-- in the necessary absence of direct testimony -- to accomplish

a most painstaking work of tracing backwards every institution,

carefully noting even its faintest traces in habits, customs,

traditions, songs, folk-lore, and so on; and then, combining the

separate results of each of these separate studies, to mentally

reconstitute the society which would answer to the co-existence

of all these institutions. One can consequently understand what a

formidable array of facts, and what a vast number of minute

studies of particular points is required to come to any safe

conclusion. This is exactly what one finds in the monumental work

of Bachofen and his followers, but fails to find in the works of

the other school. The mass of facts ransacked by Prof.

Westermarck is undoubtedly great enough, and his work is

certainly very valuable as a criticism; but it hardly will induce

those who know the works of Bachofen, Morgan, MacLennan, Post,

Kovalevsky, etc., in the originals, and are acquainted with the

village-community school, to change their opinions and accept the

patriarchal family theory.

    Thus the arguments borrowed by Westermarck from the familiar

habits of the primates have not, I dare say, the value which he

attributes to them. Our knowledge about the family relations

amongst the sociable species of monkeys of our own days is

extremely uncertain, while the two unsociable species of

orang-outan and gorilla must be ruled out of discussion, both

being evidently, as I have indicated in the text, decaying

species. Still less do we know about the relations which existed

between males and females amongst the primates towards the end of

the Tertiary period. The species which lived then are probably

all extinct, and we have not the slightest idea as to which of

them was the ancestral form which Man sprung from. All we can say

with any approach to probability is, that various family and

tribe relations must have existed in the different ape species,

which were extremely numerous at that time; and that great

changes must have taken place since in the habits of the

primates, similarly to the changes that took place, even within

the last two centuries, in the habits of many other mammal

species.

    The discussion must consequently be limited entirely to human

institutions; and in the minute discussion of each separate trace

of each early institution, in connection with all that we know

about every other institution of the same people or the same

tribe, lies the main force of the argument of the school which

maintains that the patriarchal family is an institution of a

relatively late origin.

    There is, in fact, quite a cycle of institutions amongst

primitive men, which become fully comprehensible if we accept the

ideas of Bachofen and Morgan, but are utterly incomprehensible

otherwise. Such are: the communistic life of the clan, so long as

it was not split up into separate paternal families; the life in

long houses, and in classes occupying separate long houses

according to the age and stage of initiation of the youth (M.

Maclay, H. Schurz); the restrictions to personal accumulation of

property of which several illustrations are given above, in the

text; the fact that women taken from another tribe belonged to

the whole tribe before becoming private property; and many

similar institutions analyzed by Lubbock. This wide cycle of

institutions, which fell into decay and finally disappeared in

the village-community phase of human development, stand in

perfect accord with the "tribal marriage" theory; but they are

mostly left unnoticed by the followers of the patriarchal family

school. This is certainly not the proper way of discussing the

problem. Primitive men have not several superposed or juxtaposed

institutions as we have now. They have but one institution, the

clan, which embodies all the mutual relations of the members of

the clan. Marriage-relations and possession-relations are

clan-relations. And the last that we might expect from the

defenders of the patriarchal family theory would be to show us

how the just mentioned cycle of institutions (which disappear

later on) could have existed in an agglomeration of men living

under a system contradictory of such institutions -- the system

of separate families governed by the pater familias.

    Again, one cannot recognize scientific value in the way in

which certain serious difficulties are set aside by the promoters

of the patriarchal family theory. Thus, Morgan has proved by a

considerable amount of evidence that a strictly-kept

"classificatory group system" exists with many primitive tribes,

and that all the individuals of the same category address each

other as if they were brothers and sisters, while the individuals

of a younger category will address their mothers' sisters as

mothers, and so on. To say that this must be a simple façon de

parler -- a way of expressing respect to age -- is certainly an

easy method of getting rid of the difficulty of explaining, why

this special mode of expressing respect, and not some other, has

prevailed among so many peoples of different origin, so as to

survive with many of them up to the present day? One may surely

admit that ma and pa are the syllables which are easiest to

pronounce for a baby, but the question is -- Why this part of

"baby language" is used by full-grown people, and is applied to a

certain strictly-defined category of persons? Why, with so many

tribes in which the mother and her sisters are called ma, the

father is designated by tiatia (similar to diadia -- uncle), dad,

da or pa? Why the appellation of mother given to maternal aunts

is supplanted later on by a separate name? And so on. But when we

learn that with many savages the mother's sister takes as

responsible a part in bringing up a child as the mother itself,

and that, if death takes away a beloved child, the other "mother"

(the mother's sister) will sacrifice herself to accompany the

child in its journey into the other world -- we surely see in

these names something much more profound than a mere façon de

parler, or a way of testifying respect. The more so when we learn

of the existence of quite a cycle of survivals (Lubbock,

Kovalevsky, Post have fully discussed them), all pointing in the

same direction. Of course it may be said that kinship is reckoned

on the maternal side "because the child remains more with its

mother," or we may explain the fact that a man's children by

several wives of different tribes belong to their mothers' clans

in consequence of the savages' ignorance of physiology;" but

these are not arguments even approximately adequate to the

seriousness of the questions involved -- especially when it is

known that the obligation of bearing the mother's name implies

belonging to the mother's clan in all respects: that is, involves

a right to all the belongings of the maternal clan, as well as

the right of being protected by it, never to be assailed by any

one of it, and the duty of revenging offences on its behalf.

    Even if we were to admit for a moment the satisfactory nature

of such explanations, we should soon find out that a separate

explanation has to be given for each category of such facts --

and they are very numerous. To mention but a few of them, there

is: the division of clans into classes, at a time when there is

no division as regards property or social condition; exogamy and

all the consequent customs enumerated by Lubbock; the blood

covenant and a series of similar customs intended to testify the

unity of descent; the appearance of family gods subsequent to the

existence of clan gods; the exchange of wives which exists not

only with Eskimos in times of calamity, but is also widely spread

among many other tribes of a quite different origin; the

looseness of nuptial ties the lower we descend in civilization;

the compound marriages -- several men marrying one wife who

belongs to them in turns; the abolition of the marriage

restrictions during festivals, or on each fifth, sixth, etc.,

day; the cohabitation of families in "long houses"; the

obligation of rearing the orphan falling, even at a late period,

upon the maternal uncle; the considerable number of transitory

forms showing the gradual passage from maternal descent to

paternal descent; the limitation of the number of children by the

clan -- not by the family -- and the abolition of this harsh

clause in times of plenty; family restrictions coming after the

clan restrictions; the sacrifice of the old relatives to the

tribe; the tribal lex talionis and many other habits and customs

which become a "family matter" only when we find the family, in

the modern sense of the word, finally constituted; the nuptial

and pre-nuptial ceremonies of which striking illustrations may be

found in the work of Sir John Lubbock, and of several modern

Russian explorers; the absence of marriage solemnities where the

line of descent is matriarchal, and the appearance of such

solemnities with tribes following the paternal line of descent --

all these and many others(1*) showing that, as Durckheim remarks,

marriage proper "is only tolerated and prevented by antagonist

forces;" the destruction at the death of the individual of what

belonged to him personally; and finally, all the formidable array

of survivals,(2*) myths (Bachofen and his many followers),

folk-lore, etc., all telling in the same direction.

    Of course, all this does not prove that there was a period

when woman was regarded as superior to man, or was the "head" of

the clan; this is a quite distinct matter, and my personal

opinion is that no such period has ever existed; nor does it

prove that there was a time when no tribal restrictions to the

union of sexes existed -- this would have been absolutely

contrary to all known evidence. But when all the facts lately

brought to light are considered in their mutual dependency, it is

impossible not to recognize that if isolated couples, with their

children, have possibly existed even in the primitive clan, these

incipient families were tolerated exceptions only, not the

institution of the time.



NOTES:



1. See Marriage Customs in many Lands, by H.N. Hutchinson,

London, 1897.



2. Many new and interesting forms of these have been collected by

Wilhelm Rudeck, Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in

Deutschland, analyzed by Durckheim in Annuaire Sociologique, ii.

312.







        VIII -- DESTRUCTION 0F PRIVATE PROPERTY ON THE GRAVE.

                    (To p. 99.)



    In a remarkable work, The Religious Systems of China,

published in 1892-97 by J. M. de Groot at Leyden, we find the

confirmation of this idea. There was in China (as elsewhere) a

time when all personal belongings of a dead person were destroyed

on his tomb -- his mobiliary goods, his chattels, his slaves, and

even friends and vassals, and of course his widow. It required a

strong reaction against this custom on behalf of the moralists to

put an end to it. With the gipsies in England the custom of

destroying all chattels on the grave has survived up to the

present day. All the personal property of the gipsy queen who

died a few years ago was destroyed on her grave. Several

newspapers mentioned it at that time.







                IX -- THE "UNDIVIDED FAMILY."

                            (To p. 124.)





    A number of valuable works on the South Slavonian Zadruga, or

"compound family," compared to other forms of family

organization, have been published since the above was written;

namely, by Ernest Miler (Jahrbuch der Internationaler Vereinung

für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft und Volkswirthschaftslehre,

1897), and I.E. Geszow's Zadruga in Bulgaria, and

Zadruga-Ownership and Work in Bulgaria (both in Bulgarian). I

must also mention the well-known study of Bogisic (De la forme

dite 'inokosna' de la famille rurale chez les Serbes et les

Croates, Paris, 1884), which has been omitted in the text.



            X -- THE ORIGIN OF THE GUILDS.

                    (To p. 176)



    The origin of the guilds has been the subject of many

controversies. There is not the slightest doubt that

craft-guilds, or "colleges" of artisans, existed in ancient Rome.

It appears, indeed, from a passage in Plutarch that Numa

legislated about them. "He divided the people," we are told,

"into trades... ordering them to have brotherhoods, festivals,

and meetings, and indicating the worship they had to accomplish

before the gods, according to the dignity of each trade." It is

almost certain, however, that it was not the Roman king who

invented, or instituted, the trade-colleges -- they had already

existed in ancient Greece; in all probability, he simply

submitted them to royal legislation, just as Philippe le Bel,

fifteen centuries later, submitted the trades of France, much to

their detriment, to royal supervision and legislation. One of the

successors of Numa, Servius Tullius, also is said to have issued

some legislation concerning the colleges.(1*)

    Consequently, it was quite natural that historians should ask

themselves whether the guilds which took such a development in

the twelfth, and even the tenth and the eleventh centuries, were

not revivals of the old Roman "colleges" -- the more so as the

latter, as seen from the above quotation, quite corresponded to

the medieval guild.(2*) It is known, indeed, that corporations of

the Roman type existed in Southern Gaul down to the fifth

century. Besides, an inscription found during some excavations in

Paris shows that a corporation of Lutetia nautae existed under

Tiberius; and in the chart given to the Paris "water-merchants"

in 1170, their rights are spoken of as existing ab antiquo (same

author, p. 51). There would have been, therefore, nothing

extraordinary, had corporations been maintained in early medieval

France after the barbarian invasions.

    However, even if as much must be granted, there is no reason

to maintain that the Dutch corporations, the Norman guilds, the

Russian artéls, the Georgian amkari, and so on, necessarily have

had also a Roman, or even a Byzantine origin. Of course, the

intercourse between the Normans and the capital of the East-Roman

Empire was very active, and the Slavonians (as has been proved by

Russian historians, and especially by Rambaud) took a lively part

in that intercourse. So, the Normans and the Russians may have

imported the Roman organization of trade-corporations into their

respective lands. But when we see that the artél was the very

essence of the every-day life of all the Russians, as early as

the tenth century, and that this artél, although no sort of

legislation has ever regulated its life till modern times, has

the very same features as the Roman college and the Western

guild, we are still more inclined to consider the eastern guild

as having an even more ancient origin than the Roman college.

Romans knew well, indeed, that their sodalitia and collegia were

"what the Greeks called hetairiai" (Martin-Saint-Léon, p. 2), and

from what we know of the history of the East, we may conclude,

with little probability of being mistaken, that the great nations

of the East, as well as Egypt, also have had the same guild

organization. The essential features of this organization remain

the same wherever we may find them. It is a union of men carrying

on the same profession or trade. This union, like the primitive

clan, has its own gods and its own worship, always containing

some mysteries, specific to each separate union; it considers all

its members as brothers and sisters -- possibly (at its

beginnings) with all the consequences which such a relationship

implied in the gens, or, at least, with ceremonies that indicated

or symbolized the clan relations between brother and sister; and

finally, all the obligations of mutual support which existed in

the clan, exist in this union; namely, the exclusion of the very

possibility of a murder within the brotherhood, the clan

responsibility before justice, and the obligation, in case of a

minor dispute, of bringing the matter before the judges, or

rather the arbiters, of the guild brotherhood. The guild -- one

may say -- is thus modelled upon the clan.

    Consequently, the same remarks which are made in the text

concerning the origin of the village community, apply, I am

inclined to think, equally to the guild, the artél, and the

craft- or neighbour-brotherhood. When the bonds which formerly

connected men in their clans were loosened in consequence of

migrations, the appearance of the paternal family, and a growing

diversity of occupations -- a new territorial bond was worked out

by mankind in the shape of the village community; and another

bond -- an occupation bond -- was worked out in an imaginary

brotherhood -- the imaginary clan, which was represented: between

two men, or a few men, by the "mixture-of-blood brotherhood" (the

Slavonian pobratimstvo), and between a greater number of men of

different origin, i.e. originated from different clans,

inhabiting the same village or town (or even different villages

or towns) -- the phratry, the hetairiai, the amkari, the artél,

the guild.(3*)

    As to the idea and the form of such an organization, its

elements were already indicated from the savage period downwards.

We know indeed that in the clans of all savages there are

separate secret organizations of warriors, of witches, of young

men, etc. -- craft mysteries, in which knowledge concerning

hunting or warfare is transmitted; in a word, "clubs," as

Miklukho-Maclay described them. These "mysteries" were, in all

probability, the prototypes of the future guilds.(4*)

    With regard to the above-mentioned work by E.

Martin-Saint-Léon, let me add that it contains very valuable

information concerning the organization of the trades in Paris --

as it appears from the Livre des métiers of Boileau -- and a good

summary of information relative to the Communes of different

parts of France, with all bibliographical indications. It must,

however, be remembered that Paris was a "Royal city" (like

Moscow, or Westminster), and that consequently the free

medieval-city institutions have never attained there the

development which they have attained in free cities. Far from

representing "the picture of a typical corporation," the

corporations of Paris, "born and developed under the direct

tutorship of royalty," for this very same cause (which the author

considers a cause of superiority , while it was a cause of

inferiority -- he himself fully shows in different parts of his

work how the interference of the imperial power in Rome, and of

the royal power in France, destroyed and paralyzed the life of

the craft-guilds) could never attain the wonderful growth and

influence upon all the life of the city which they did attain in

North-Eastern France, at Lyons, Montpellier, Nimes, etc., or in

the free cities of Italy, Flanders, Germany, and so on.



NOTES:



1. A Servio Tullio populus romanus relatus in censum, digestus in

classes, curiis atque collegiis distributus (E. Martin-Saint

Léon, Histoire des corporations de métiers depuis leurs origines

jusqu'à leur suppression en 1791, etc., Paris, 1897.



2. The Roman sodalitia, so far as we may judge (same author, p.

9), corresponded to the Kabyle çofs. 



3. It is striking to see how distinctly this very idea is

expressed in the well-known passage of Plutarch concerning Numa's

legislation of the trade-colleges: -- "And through this,"

Plutarch wrote, "he was the first to banish from the city this

spirit which led people to say: 'I am a Sabine,' or 'I am a

Roman,' or 'I am a subject of Tatius,' and another: 'I am a

subject of Romulus'" -- to exclude, in other words, the idea of

different descent.



4. The work of H. Schurtz, devoted to the "age-classes" and the

secret men's unions during the barbarian stases of civilization

(Altersklassen und Männerverbände: eine Darstellung der

Grundformen der Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1902), which reaches me

while I am reading the proofs of these pages, contains numbers of

facts in support of the above hypothesis concerning the origin of

guilds. The art of building a large communal house, so as not to

offend the spirits of the fallen trees; the art of forging

metals, so as to conciliate the hostile spirits; the secrets of

hunting and of the ceremonies and mask-dances which render it

successful; the art of teaching savage arts to boys; the secret

ways of warding off the witchcraft of enemies and, consequently,

the art of warfare; the making of boats, of nets for fishing, of

traps for animals, and of snares for birds, and finally the

women's arts of weaving and dyeing -- all these were in olden

times as many "artifices" and "crafts," which required secrecy

for being effective. Consequently, they were transmitted from the

earliest times, in secret societies, or "mysteries," to those

only who had undergone a painful initiation. H. Schurtz shows now

that savage life is honeycombed with secret societies and "clubs"

(of warriors, of hunters), which have as ancient an origin as the

marriage "classes" in the clans, and contain already all the

elements of the future guild: secrecy, independence from the

family and sometimes the clan, common worship of special gods,

common meals, jurisdiction within the society and brotherhood.

The forge and the boat-house are, in fact, usual dependencies of

the men's clubs; and the "long houses" or "palavers" are built by

special craftsmen who know how to conjure the spirits of the

fallen trees.



            XI -- THE MARKET AND THE MEDIEVAL CITY.

                        (To p. 190)





    In a work on the medieval city (Markt und Stadt in ihrem

rechtlichen Verhältnis, Leipzig, 1896), Rietschel has developed

the idea that the origin of the German medieval communes must be

sought in the market. The local market, placed under the

protection of a bishop, a monastery or a prince, gathered round

it a population of tradesmen and artisans, but no agricultural

population. The sections into which the towns were usually

divided, radiating from the market-place and peopled each with

artisans of special trades, are a proof of that: they formed

usually the Old Town, while the New Town used to be a rural

village belonging to the prince or the king. The two were

governed by different laws.

    It is certainly true that the market has played an important

part in the early development of all medieval cities,

contributing to increase the wealth of the citizens, and giving

them ideas of independence; but, as has been remarked by Carl

Hegel -- the well-known author of a very good general work on

German medieval cities (Die Entstehung des deutschen

Städtewesens, Leipzig, 1898), the town-law is not a market-law,

and Hegel's conclusion is (in further support to the views taken

in this book) that the medieval city has had a double origin.

There were in it "two populations placed by the side of each

other: one rural, and the other purely urban;" the rural

population, which formerly lived under the organization of the

Almende, or village community, was incorporated in the city.

    With regard to the Merchant Guilds, the work of Herman van

den Linden (Les Gildes marchandes dans les Pays-Bas au Moyen Age,

Gand, 1896, in Recueil de travaux publiés par la Faculté de

Philosophie et Lettres) deserves a special mention. The author

follows the gradual development of their political force and the

authority which they gradually acquired upon the industrial

population, especially on the drapers, and describes the league

concluded by the artisans to oppose their growing power. The

idea, which is developed in this book, concerning the appearance

of the merchant guild at a later period which mostly corresponded

to a period of decline of the city liberties, seems thus to find

confirmation in H. van den Linden's researches.





XII -- MUTUAL-AID ARRANGEMENTS IN THE VILLAGES OF NETHERLANDS AT

THE PRESENT DAY.

                        (To p. 250)





    The Report of the Agricultural Commission of Netherlands

contains many illustrations relative to this subject, and my

friend, M. Cornelissen, was kind enough to pick out for me the

corresponding passages from these bulky volumes (Uitkomsten van

het Onderzoek naar den Toestand van den Landbouw in Nederland, 2

vols. 1890).

    The habit of having one thrashing-machine, which makes the

round of many farms, hiring it in turn, is very widely spread, as

it is by this time in nearly every other country. But one finds

here and there a commune which keeps one thrashing-machine for

the community (vol. I. xviii. p. 31).

    The farmers who have not the necessary numbers of horses for

the plough borrow the horses from their neighbours. The habit of

keeping one communal ox, or one communal stallion, is very

common.

    When the village has to raise the ground (in the low

districts) in order to build a communal school, or for one of the

peasants in order to build a new house, a bede is usually

convoked. The same is done for those farmers who have to move.

The bede is altogether a widely-spread custom, and no one, rich

or poor, will fail to come with his horse and cart.

    The renting in common, by several agricultural labourers, of

a meadow, for keeping their cows, is found in several parts of

the land; it is also frequent that the farmer, who has plough and

horses, ploughs the land for his hired labourers (vol. I. xxii.

p. 18, etc.).

    As to the farmers' unions for buying seed, exporting

vegetables to England and so on, they become universal. The same

is seen in Belgium. In 1896, seven years after peasants' guilds

had been started, first in the Flemish part of the country, and

four years only after they were introduced in the Walloon portion

of Belgium, there were already 207 such guilds, with a membership

of 10,000 (Annuaire de la Science Agronomique, vol. I. (2), 1896,

pp. 148 and 149).



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