Peter Kropotkin - Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution

(To p. 11)

Pierre Hubers Les fourmis indignes (Genve, 1810), of which a cheap edition was issued in 1861 by Cherbuliez, in the Bibliothque 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 Hubers 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 Hubers 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 Bchners book, Mind in Animals, and knows Lubbocks experiments. As to the works of Huber and Forel, he dismisses them in the following sentence; but they [Bchners 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 Hubers and Forels 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 Lefnadsfrhllanden (Bihang till Svenska Akademiens 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. 136137).

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 pup of the former. As a rule, when Professor Adlerz brought together workers, with their pup, both taken from different nests, there was no battle; but if the workers were without their pup, a battle ensued (pp. 185186).

He also completes Forels and MacCooks 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.

Maeterlincks admirably written book on bees, although it contains no new observations, would be very useful, if it were less marred with metaphysical words.