Of the scientific followers of Darwin, the first, as far as I
know, who understood the full purport of Mutual Aid as a law of
Nature and the chief factor of evolution, was a well-known
Russian zoologist, the late Dean of the St. Petersburg
University, Professor Kessler. He developed his ideas in an
address which he delivered in January 1880, a few months before
his death, at a Congress of Russian naturalists; but, like so
many good things published in the Russian tongue only, that
remarkable address remains almost entirely unknown.(3)

"As a zoologist of old standing," he felt bound to protest
against the abuse of a term--the struggle for existence--
borrowed from zoology, or, at least, against overrating its
importance. Zoology, he said, and those sciences which deal with
man, continually insist upon what they call the pitiless law of
struggle for existence. But they forget the existence of another
law which may be described as the law of mutual aid, which law,
at least for the animals, is far more essential than the former.
He pointed out how the need of leaving progeny necessarily brings
animals together, and, "the more the individuals keep together,
the more they mutually support each other, and the more are the
chances of the species for surviving, as well as for making
further progress in its intellectual development." "All classes
of animals," he continued, "and especially the higher ones,
practise mutual aid," and he illustrated his idea by examples
borrowed from the life of the burying beetles and the social life
of birds and some mammalia. The examples were few, as might have
been expected in a short opening address, but the chief points
were clearly stated; and, after mentioning that in the evolution