Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/443

Rh all the important features that distinguish man from the lower animals, but those already mentioned will suffice.

The last question to be discussed is whether there is any generic distinction between human and animal association. Many animals are gregarious and some lead a truly social life. We all know how most domestic animals love to mingle with their kind. The horse is an exceedingly social animal and is always uneasy and apparently unhappy until in the presence of other horses. Most ungulates, even in the wild state, go in flocks and herds. It is noteworthy that herbivorous animals are more gregarious than carnivorous ones. Animals of the cat tribe are scarcely at all so. Wolves, it is true, go in packs, but it may be a question whether this is not entirely due to the advantage this gives them in attacking their prey, which is often an animal of nearly their own size, as the sheep. Many birds live in flocks, sometimes, as pigeons, of immense numbers. Fishes, too, form "shoals," and insects swarm.

The causes of all these forms of gregariousness are numerous and complex. The necessities of reproduction are sufficient to account for a large part of it, and all animals must associate enough to secure this end. One of the most curious facts is that those animals which zoologists place nearest to man are not among the most gregarious. The habits of apes and monkeys in the wild state are not as well known as could be wished in discussing this question, and although some of the anthropoid apes are known to go in troops, though not very large ones, still this class of animals can scarcely be regarded as gregarious. Although it is admitted that none of the living forms could have been the immediate ancestor of man, and therefore there will always remain the possibility that his true simian ancestor may have been a gregarious animal, still the probabilities are against this view, and it seems likely that throughout his purely animal career man possessed the associative habit only so far as was necessary for the maintenance of the race.

Considering all these facts I am inclined to the view that man is not naturally a social being, that he has descended from