Matt Ridley - The Origins of Virtue

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE ORIGINS OF VIRTUE

Matt Ridley has joined the ranks of those literate wits among scientists, such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, who entertain us so marvellously while we are being enlightened I was enthralled by it all Ruth Rendell in the Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

Extremely well written Mart Ridley does an admirable job at documenting the mutual dependencies implied by Darwin Frans de Waal in Nature

Dolphins, bees, ants, apes, even vampire bats are pressed into service, alongside Hobbes, Rousseau, Smith, Ricardo and Darwin. The result is a book refreshingly and determinedly non-political Hamish McRae in the Independent

Matt Ridley is one of the brightest breed of scientists who tell us things non-scientists need to know, while disabusing us of things we thought we knew. Reading him is bracing, amusing, informative and infuriating by turns Maggie Gee in the Daily Telegraph

His best book yet, an enthrallingly persuasive study of a fascinating subject Miranda Seymour in the Sunday Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Ridley did research in zoology at Oxford before becoming a journalist. He worked for the Economist for eight years and was a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph for seven years. He is the author of Warts and All, about US presidential politics, The Red Queen, his highly acclaimed book on the evolution of sex, which is also published by Penguin, and Genome. His books have been shortlisted for six major literary awards. He is chairman of the International Centre for Life. He lives in Northumberland and is married to a reader in physiology at the University of Newcastle.

PENGUIN BOOKS

The words in this book are entirely my own; but the insights and ideas belong mostly to other people. My greatest debt is to those who shared their thoughts and discoveries with me so generously. Some submitted to long interrogations or sent papers and books, some gave moral or practical support and some read or criticized drafts of chapters. I thank them all sincerely.

They include: Terry Anderson, Christopher Badcock, Roger Bate, Laura Betzig, Roger Bingham, Monique Borgehoff Mulder, Mark Boyce, Robert Boyd, Sam Brittan, Stephen Budiansky, Stephanie Cabot, Elizabeth Cashdan, Napoleon Chagnon, Bruce Charlton, Dorothy Cheney, Jeremy Cherfas, Leda Cosmides, Helena Cronin, Lee Cronk, Clive Crook, Bruce Dakowski, Richard Dawkins, Robin Dunbar, Paul Ekman, Wolfgang Fikentscher, Robert Frank, Anthony Gottlieb, David Haig, Bill Hamilton, Peter Hammerstein, Garrett Hardin, John Hartung, Toshikazu Hasegawa, Kristen Hawkes, Kim Hill, Robert Hinde, Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, David Hirshleifer, Jack Hirshleifer, Anya Hurlbert, Magdalena Hurtado, Lamar Jones, Hillard Kaplan, Charles Keckler, Bob Kentridge, Desmond King-Hele, Mel Konner, Robert Layton, Brian Leith, Mark Lilla, Tom Lloyd, Bobbi Low, Michael McGuire, Roger Masters, John Maynard Smith, Gene Mesher, Geoffrey Miller, Graeme Mitchison, Martin Nowak, Elinor Ostrom, Wallace Raven, Peter Richerson, Adam Ridley, Alan Rogers, Paul Romer, Garry Runciman, Miranda Seymour, Stephen Shennan, Fred Smith, Vernon Smith, Lyle Steadman, James Steele, Michael Taylor, Lionel Tiger, John Tooby, Robert Trivers, Colin Tudge, Richard Webb, George Williams, Margo Wilson and Robert Wright. It has been a privilege to see these minds at work and I only hope I have done justice to their ideas.

For their patience and advice, I thank my agents, Felicity Bryan and Peter Ginsberg; my editors and encouragers at Viking Penguin Ravi Mirchandani, Clare Alexander and Mark Stafford; and several newspaper and magazine editors who gave me the space to try out some ideas in print Charles Moore, Redmond OHanlon, Rosie Boycott and Max Wilkinson.

Above all, and for everything, I thank my wife, Anya Hurlbert.

In which a Russian anarchist escapes from prison

I was in pain to consider the miserable condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving some relief, doth also ease me.

Thomas Hobbes, explaining why he gave sixpence to a beggar.

The prisoner was in a dilemma. As he paced slowly along his accustomed path, he suddenly heard a violin, in the open window of a house overlooking the prison yard. It was playing an exciting Kontski mazurka. The signal! But he was at that point in his walk farthest from the prison gate. His escape plan must work the first time or not at all, for it depended upon surprising the guards.

Now he had to shed his heavy dressing-gown, turn and run towards the open gate of the prison before the guards could catch him. The gate was open to receive a regular delivery of firewood. Once outside, his friends would whisk him away through the streets of St Petersburg in a carriage. The plans had been carefully laid, and relayed to the prisoner in cipher in a message hidden in a watch delivered to him by a woman visitor. His friends were posted along the street for two miles, each giving a different signal to the next that the streets were clear of traffic. The violin was the signal that the street was clear, the carriage was in place, the guard at the hospital gate close to the carriage was being engaged in deep, misleading conversation by the prisoners confederate on the subject of how parasites appear under the microscope (research had revealed that the guards hobby was microscopy), and that all was ready.

But one slip and he would never have another chance. He would probably be returned from the St Petersburg military hospital jail to the dark, damp, enfeebling gloom of the Peter and Paul fortress, where he had already spent two lonely, scurvy-ridden years. So he must choose his moment carefully. Would the mazurka continue until he reached the point in the path nearest the prison gate? When should he run?

With trembling tread he paced back along the path towards the prison gate. He reached the end of the path and turned to look at the sentry who was following him: the man had stopped five paces behind. The violin was still playing (and well, he thought).

Now! With the two quick motions he had practised a thousand times, he flung off his cumbrous garment and broke into a run. The sentry gave chase, flinging his rifle forwards to strike the prisoner down with the bayonet. But desperation lent the prisoner strength and he reached the entrance unscathed and a few paces ahead of his pursuer. Through the gate he hesitated for a second on seeing that the carriage was occupied by a man in a military cap. Sold to the enemy! he thought. But then he noticed the sandy whiskers of his friend, the tsaritsas personal physician and a secret revolutionary, beneath the cap; he leapt aboard. The cab sped away into the city, pursuit being hampered by his friends who had hired all nearby cabs. They drove to a barbers shop, shaved off the prisoners beard and by evening were ensconced in one of the most fashionable of St Petersburgs restaurants, where the secret police would never even think of looking.

Much, much later, the prisoner would remember the fact that he owed his freedom to the courage of others: the woman who brought the watch, the woman who played the violin, the friend who drove the carriage and the physician who sat inside it, all the various confederates who kept the streets clear of traffic while he made good his escape. It was a team effort that sprang him from jail, and the memory was to ignite in his mind a whole theory of human evolution.