A Factor of EvolutionMutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution Peter Kropotkin 1902 Chapter 2: MUTUAL AID AMONG ANIMALS (continued) Migrations of birds.-- Breeding associations. -- Autumn societies. -- Mammals: small number of unsociable species. -- Hunting associations of wolves, lions, etc. -- Societies of rodents; of ruminants; of monkeys. -- Mutual Aid in the struggle for life. -- Darwin's arguments to prove the struggle for life within the species. -- Natural checks to over-multiplication. -- Supposed extermination of intermediate links. -- Elimination of competition in Nature. As soon as spring comes back to the temperate zone, myriads and myriads of birds which are scattered over the warmer regions of the South come together in numberless bands, and, full of vigor and joy, hasten northwards to rear their offspring. Each of our hedges, each grove, each ocean cliff, and each of the lakes and ponds with which Northern America, Northern...
"That will reconcile me to life," writes Emerson, "and renovate nature, to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am doing." And which of us, tortured and reduced well nigh to despair by the horrible degradation of human dignity in the existing hypocritical and unnatural sexual relations, does not feel the need for such a vision of the end and meaning of our present pain, if still we are to fight on. This essay by K. P.1 is one of those jets of thought which pierce the misty confusion of times when the air is full of the dust of out-worn forms and faded beliefs with a ray of positive and reasoned conviction, pointing the road to a new order in human life more in correspondence with our consciousness of reality. Following the... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
TRUE CIVILIZATION. INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER I. Those who have not leisure or inclination to follow all the subtle intricacies of the following subjects will at once appreciate the relief promised by the "Tribunals" proposed in this first chapter following, to which everything of the kind can be referred with a prospect of obtaining as reliable opinions as could be expected from any quarter; at least, as reliable as opinions that are not authoritative need to be. But, I implore my fellow-men not longer to commit themselves to indiscriminate subordination to any human authority or to the fatal delusions of logic and analogies, nor even to ideas or principles (so called), but to maintain, as far as possible, at all times, the FREEDOM to act according to the apparent merits of each individual case as it may present itself to each individual understanding. There is no...