Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Peter Kropotkin 1902APPENDIX
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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