The Descent of Man

Judging from the habits of savages and of the
greater number of the Quadrumana, primeval
men, and even their ape-like progenitors, probably
lived in society. With strictly social animals,
natural selection sometimes acts on the
individual, through the preservation of variations
which are beneficial to the community. A
community which includes a large number of
well-endowed individuals increases in number,
and is victorious over other less favoured ones;
even although each separate member gains no
advantage over the others of the same community.
Associated insects have thus acquired
many remarkable structures, which are of little
or no service to the individual, such as the pollen-collecting
apparatus, or the sting of the
worker-bee, or the great jaws of soldier-ants.
With the higher social animals, I am not aware
that any structure has been modified solely for
the good of the community, though some are of
secondary service to it. For instance, the horns
of ruminants and the great canine teeth of ba-