Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution



Peter Kropotkin

1902



CONCLUSION









    If we take now the teachings which can be borrowed from the



analysis of modern society, in connection with the body of



evidence relative to the importance of mutual aid in the



evolution of the animal world and of mankind, we may sum up our



inquiry as follows.



    In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of



species live in societies, and that they find in association the



best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in



its wide Darwinian sense -- not as a struggle for the sheer means



of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions



unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which



individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and



the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development,



are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the



most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is



obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and



of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development,



and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance



of the species, its extension, and its further progressive



evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to



decay.



    Going next over to man, we found him living in clans and



tribes at the very dawn of the stone age; we saw a wide series of



social institutions developed already in the lower savage stage,



in the clan and the tribe; and we found that the earliest tribal



customs and habits gave to mankind the embryo of all the



institutions which made later on the leading aspects of further



progress. Out of the savage tribe grew up the barbarian village



community; and a new, still wider, circle of social customs,



habits, and institutions, numbers of which are still alive among



ourselves, was developed under the principles of common



possession of a given territory and common defence of it, under



the jurisdiction of the village folkmote, and in the federation



of villages belonging, or supposed to belong, to one stem. And



when new requirements induced men to make a new start, they made



it in the city, which represented a double network of territorial



units (village communities), connected with guilds these latter



arising out of the common prosecution of a given art or craft, or



for mutual support and defence.



    And finally, in the last two chapters facts were produced to



show that although the growth of the State on the pattern of



Imperial Rome had put a violent end to all medieval institutions



for mutual support, this new aspect of civilization could not



last. The State, based upon loose aggregations of individuals and



undertaking to be their only bond of union, did not answer its



purpose. The mutual-aid tendency finally broke down its iron



rules; it reappeared and reasserted itself in an infinity of



associations which now tend to embrace all aspects of life and to



take possession of all that is required by man for life and for



reproducing the waste occasioned by life.



    It will probably be remarked that mutual aid, even though it



may represent one of the factors of evolution, covers



nevertheless one aspect only of human relations; that by the side



of this current, powerful though it may be, there is, and always



has been, the other current -- the self-assertion of the



individual, not only in its efforts to attain personal or caste



superiority, economical, political, and spiritual, but also in



its much more important although less evident function of



breaking through the bonds, always prone to become crystallized,



which the tribe, the village community, the city, and the State



impose upon the individual. In other words, there is the



self-assertion of the individual taken as a progressive element.



    It is evident that no review of evolution can be complete,



unless these two dominant currents are analyzed. However, the



self-assertion of the individual or of groups of individuals,



their struggles for superiority, and the conflicts which resulted



therefrom, have already been analyzed, described, and glorified



from time immemorial. In fact, up to the present time, this



current alone has received attention from the epical poet, the



annalist, the historian, and the sociologist. History, such as it



has hitherto been written, is almost entirely a description of



the ways and means by which theocracy, military power, autocracy,



and, later on, the richer classes' rule have been promoted,



established, and maintained. The struggles between these forces



make, in fact, the substance of history. We may thus take the



knowledge of the individual factor in human history as granted --



even though there is full room for a new study of the subject on



the lines just alluded to; while, on the other side, the



mutual-aid factor has been hitherto totally lost sight of; it was



simply denied, or even scoffed at, by the writers of the present



and past generation. It was therefore necessary to show, first of



all, the immense part which this factor plays in the evolution of



both the animal world and human societies. Only after this has



been fully recognized will it be possible to proceed to a



comparison between the two factors.



    To make even a rough estimate of their relative importance by



any method more or less statistical, is evidently impossible. One



single war -- we all know  -- may be productive of more evil,



immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked



action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good. But



when we see that in the animal world, progressive development and



mutual aid go hand in hand, while the inner struggle within the



species is concomitant with retrogressive development; when we



notice that with man, even success in struggle and war is



proportionate to the development of mutual aid in each of the two



conflicting nations, cities, parties, or tribes, and that in the



process of evolution war itself (so far as it can go this way)



has been made subservient to the ends of progress in mutual aid



within the nation, the city or the clan -- we already obtain a



perception of the dominating influence of the mutual-aid factor



as an element of progress. But we see also that the practice of



mutual aid and its successive developments have created the very



conditions of society life in which man was enabled to develop



his arts, knowledge, and intelligence; and that the periods when



institutions based on the mutual-aid tendency took their greatest



development were also the periods of the greatest progress in



arts, industry, and science. In fact, the study of the inner life



of the medieval city and of the ancient Greek cities reveals the



fact that the combination of mutual aid, as it was practised



within the guild and the Greek clan, with a large initiative



which was left to the individual and the group by means of the



federative principle, gave to mankind the two greatest periods of



its history -- the ancient Greek city and the medieval city



periods; while the ruin of the above institutions during the



State periods of history, which followed, corresponded in both



cases to a rapid decay.



    As to the sudden industrial progress which has been achieved



during our own century, and which is usually ascribed to the



triumph of individualism and competition, it certainly has a much



deeper origin than that. Once the great discoveries of the



fifteenth century were made, especially that of the pressure of



the atmosphere, supported by a series of advances in natural



philosophy -- and they were made under the medieval city



organization, -- once these discoveries were made, the invention



of the steam-motor, and all the revolution which the conquest of



a new power implied, had necessarily to follow. If the medieval



cities had lived to bring their discoveries to that point, the



ethical consequences of the revolution effected by steam might



have been different; but the same revolution in technics and



science would have inevitably taken place. It remains, indeed, an



open question whether the general decay of industries which



followed the ruin of the free cities, and was especially



noticeable in the first part of the eighteenth century, did not



considerably retard the appearance of the steam-engine as well as



the consequent revolution in arts. When we consider the



astounding rapidity of industrial progress from the twelfth to



the fifteenth centuries -- in weaving, working of metals,



architecture and navigation, and ponder over the scientific



discoveries which that industrial progress led to at the end of



the fifteenth century -- we must ask ourselves whether mankind



was not delayed in its taking full advantage of these conquests



when a general depression of arts and industries took place in



Europe after the decay of medieval civilization. Surely it was



not the disappearance of the artist-artisan, nor the ruin of



large cities and the extinction of intercourse between them,



which could favour the industrial revolution; and we know indeed



that James Watt spent twenty or more years of his life in order



to render his invention serviceable, because he could not find in



the last century what he would have readily found in medieval



Florence or Brügge, that is, the artisans capable of realizing



his devices in metal, and of giving them the artistic finish and



precision which the steam-engine requires.



    To attribute, therefore, the industrial progress of our



century to the war of each against all which it has proclaimed,



is to reason like the man who, knowing not the causes of rain,



attributes it to the victim he has immolated before his clay



idol. For industrial progress, as for each other conquest over



nature, mutual aid and close intercourse certainly are, as they



have been, much more advantageous than mutual struggle.



    However, it is especially in the domain of ethics that. the



dominating importance of the mutual-aid principle appears in



full. That mutual aid is the real foundation of our ethical



conceptions seems evident enough. But whatever the opinions as to



the first origin of the mutual-aid feeling or instinct may be



whether a biological or a supernatural cause is ascribed to it --



we must trace its existence as far back as to the lowest stages



of the animal world; and from these stages we can follow its



uninterrupted evolution, in opposition to a number of contrary



agencies, through all degrees of human development, up to the



present times. Even the new religions which were born from time



to time -- always at epochs when the mutual-aid principle was



falling into decay in the theocracies and despotic States of the



East, or at the decline of the Roman Empire -- even the new



religions have only reaffirmed that same principle. They found



their first supporters among the humble, in the lowest,



downtrodden layers of society, where the mutual-aid principle is



the necessary foundation of every-day life; and the new forms of



union which were introduced in the earliest Buddhist and



Christian communities, in the Moravian brotherhoods and so on,



took the character of a return to the best aspects of mutual aid



i n early tribal life.



    Each time, however, that an attempt to return to this old



principle was made, its fundamental idea itself was widened. From



the clan it was extended to the stem, to the federation of stems,



to the nation, and finally -- in ideal, at least -- to the whole



of mankind. It was also refined at the same time. In primitive



Buddhism, in primitive Christianity, in the writings of some of



the Mussulman teachers, in the early movements of the Reform, and



especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of the last



century and of our own times, the total abandonment of the idea



of revenge, or of "due reward" -- of good for good and evil for



evil -- is affirmed more and more vigorously. The higher



conception of "no revenge for wrongs," and of freely giving more



than one expects to receive from his neighbours, is proclaimed as



being the real principle of morality -- a principle superior to



mere equivalence, equity, or justice, and more conducive to



happiness. And man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not



merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal,



but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In



the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest



beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted



origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the



ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle --



has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the



present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier



evolution of our race.









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