Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/345

Rh hereditary transmission of new habits, yet it is possible that a slow improvement in the habits of these communities may still continue, both by education or observation and by heredity.

The mental relations of animal communities, as thus reviewed, apply closely to the question of the intellectual development of man. Among the quadrumana socialism is often greatly developed, educational transmission is common, and much intellectual shrewdness is manifested. But, between the intellectuality of these communities and those of the ants and bees, there is a marked difference. We speak of the monkey as marked by incessant curiosity. That is to say, he makes constant mental excursions beyond the range of his hereditary habits. He constantly "wants to know." His intellectual acumen is far superior to that of the low animal tribes, which have advanced so far beyond him in habits. In man the same "want to know" has ever been active, and to it are due his rapid gaining of new experiences and increase in knowledge. Yet, so far as social organization is concerned, he was very long in reaching the level attained by the communal animals. He probably continued for ages in the social state, though it is impossible to say how early the patriarchal state may have been reached. Three or four thousand years ago we find the ancestors of the present civilized nations everywhere organized under conditions closely analogous to those of ant and bee communities, though in their mental acumen and variety of habits and knowledge they were almost infinitely superior.

With one further consideration we may close. It is of interest to perceive that in human communities the transmission of intellectual habits is mainly and almost entirely a consequence of education, either direct or indirect. Instinct is almost non-existent, so far as the industrial and intellectual habits of life are concerned. We might destroy an ant city, with the exception of a single male and female, yet these would give rise to a new city, with no perceptible difference in powers from the old. Yet were we to destroy a civilized human community, with the exception of a few infants, these, could they give rise to descendants, in isolated localities, would yield a community nearly destitute of knowledge and of the power of dealing with Nature. They would have to begin anew, where their ancestors began ages before. Yet they would possess mental powers and tendencies that would enable them to rapidly gain new experience and habits, and would undoubtedly develop into a new civilization with exceedingly greater rapidity than was shown in the development of primeval man.

It is the rapidity of progress in human habits and knowledge that prevents any of these habits becoming instinctive. Old conditions are rapidly thrown aside and new ones gained, and no method of action is pursued long enough for it to grow into the force of an instinct. The tendency of human progress is to check instinct, and to more and more constantly employ reason, while with the lower animals the tendency