ves rise to the suspicion that, even
in communities less closely knit than those of the ant and the bee, the
individual may in fact be more dependent on communal life than appears
at first sight.

Another very striking piece of general evidence of the significance of
gregariousness as no mere late acquirement is the remarkable coincidence
of its occurrence with that of exceptional grades of intelligence or
the possibility of very complex reactions to environment. It can
scarcely be regarded as an unmeaning accident that the dog, the horse,
the ape, the elephant, and man are all social animals. The instances of
the bee and the ant are perhaps the most amazing. Here the advantages of
gregariousness seem actually to outweigh the most prodigious differences
of structure, and we find a condition which is often thought of as a
mere habit, capable of enabling the insect nervous system to compete in
the complexity of its power of adaptation with that of the higher
vertebrates.

From the biological standpoint the probability of gregariousness being a
primitive and fundamental quality in man seems to be considerable. It
would appear to have the effect of enlarging the advantages of
variation. Varieties not immediately favorable, varieties departing
widely from the standard, varieties even unfavorable to the individual,
may be supposed to be given by it a chance of survival. Now the course
of the development of man seems to present many features incompatible
with its having proceeded among isolated individuals exposed to the
unmodified action of natural selection. Changes so serious as the
assumption of the upright posture, the reduction in the jaw and its
musculature, the reduction in the acuity of smell and hearing, demand,
if the species is to survive, either a delicacy of adjustment with the
compensatingly developing intelligence so minute as to be almost
inconceivable, or the existence of some kind of protective enclosure,
however imperfect, in which the varying individuals may be sheltered
from the direct influence of natural selection. The existence of such a
mechanism would compensate losses of physical strength in the individual
by the greatly increased strength of the larger unit, of the unit, that
is to say, upon which natural selection still acts unmodified.

The cardinal quality of the herd is homogeneity. It is clear that the
great advantage of the social habit is to enable large numbers to act as
one, whereby in