different from that from which I shall now attempt to review the facts. Then the main {102} interest lay in an examination of the meaning of gregariousness for the individual mind, and although reasons enough were found for uneasiness at the course of events, and at the instability of civilization which any radical examination displayed, the inquiry was not pursued under any immediate imminence of disaster to the social fabric as it must be now. Naturally, therefore, at the present time certain aspects of the subject which before were of no special relevance become of great importance and demand close examination.
In a general view of the social habit in animals certain outstanding facts are readily to be observed. It is of wide distribution and sporadic occurrence, it varies much in the completeness of its development, and there seems to be an inverse relation between its completeness and the brain power of the animal concerned.
From the wideness of its distribution the social habit may be supposed to represent a forward step in complexity which comes about readily.