The simplest
illustrations of this are the calls and warning cries of mammals and
birds. It is not impossible that the higher mammals have something
worthy of the name of language. But man alone, with his better brain
and better anatomical structure of throat and mouth, and the closer
interdependence with his fellows, has attained to articulate speech.
And this again has become the bond to a still closer union.
Now our only question is, How does social life enable and aid man to
conform to environment? We are interested not so much in his
happiness as in his progress. It helps and improves the body by
giving him a better and more constant supply of more suitable food,
and better protection from inclemency of the weather, and in many
other ways. Baths and gymnasia are built, and medical science
prolongs life. Yet make the items as many as you can, and what a
long list of disadvantages to man physically you must set over
against these. Many of these evils will doubtless disappear as
society becomes better organized, but some will always remain to
plague us. We pamper or abuse our stomachs, and dyspepsia results.
We live in hot-houses, and a host of diseases are fostered by them.
Indeed it would be hard to count up the diseases for which social
life is directly or indirectly responsible.
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