Discussions and Reviews
Toward an ethology of human conflict: a review
Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression London: Methuen, 1966. Pp. 306. $5.75. Robert Ardrey, African Genesis New York: Atheneum, 1961. Pp. 380. $6.95. Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative New York: Atheneum, 1966. Pp. 390. $6.95.
Claire Russell and W. M. S. Russell, Human Behavior—A New Approach Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Pp. 532.
PETER M. DRIVER Mental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan
The study of human conflict seems to siderable impact. Those of Ardrey and that labor under three major difficulties: the dis- of Lorenz are best-sellers, and the Russells’ like of the majority of people for viewing book had an enthusiastic reception among man in his evolutionary perspective; the the members of that small ingroup of biolo- tendency of any specialist to consider his gists and humanists forming a tenuous bridge own speciality as more relevant than any between the &dquo;two cultures.&dquo; When taken other applied to a problem of common in- together-though such a mixture is very terest ; and the universal stumbling-block of strong medicine-they indicate a significant man’s sheer lack of ability to deal success- (albeit controversial) development in the fully with his social problems at the com- study of man as an organism, that is, as an munity level. All of the four books under animal which has evolved, like other ani- review at least manage to avoid the first mals, by mechanisms of natural selection. difficulty, and one of them brings powerful Unfortunately, unlike other animals, man argument to play upon the other two. now seems to be developing characteristics These four books have already had con- of &dquo;unnatural&dquo; selection which give concern 362
to many people, including the authors of discipline of objective observation of be- these books and of this review. Certainly, havior is a much longer one. Charles Dar- no other animal exhibits anything like the win, of course, included an understanding degree of intraspecific killing and maiming of ethological principles in his battery of shown by our own species. Whether any of biological techniques. Nora Barlow, Dar- the extinct animals owed their extinction to win’s granddaughter and authority on his this kind of behavioral breakdown we shall writings, has pointed out in a personal com- probably never know, but what we must be munication that in his work on barnacles, clear about is that it is a behavioral break- which predated The Origin of Species, he down-a biological malfunction-and that was all the time &dquo;thinking of behavior, ex- the behavioral biologist-the ethologist-is actly how the animal lives, and its needs.&dquo; particularly fitted to study it. The same can be seen in his Journal off Ethology, as I have indicated, and as Researches (1839). More strictly ethological Lorenz himself (1965) has stated, may be were the studies on &dquo;instinct&dquo; carried out regarded as the biology of behavior. This by Douglas Spalding (Haldane, 1954), a description, however, needs clarification. contemporary of Darwin and, briefly, tutor Anyone studying the behavior of organisms to Bertrand Russell. But such studies-and is studying biological phenomena, yet many there were many others-were only a nat- students of behavior-psychologists, sociol- ural development of the British tradition of ogists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and the scientific study of natural history, first so on-have little or only partial biological clearly revealed in Gilbert White’s classic, training. The ethologist has the distinction The Natural History of Selbourne ( 1789 ) . of being properly qualified, without obvious White was the first to make a clear dis- limits, for the study of his subject; he has tinction between the three common British training both in biological science and in species of leaf-warbler-and did it on the behavioral observation and analysis. The basis of their behavior. And his distinction ethologist tends to be a student of the whole is as valid today as it ever was. animal which, strictly speaking, is the nor- The work of Lorenz, of Ardrey, and of mal animal in its natural environment. To the Russells represents the natural develop- be a &dquo;pure&dquo; ethologist is obviously, there- ment of the earlier naturalists’ approach to fore, very difficult, and most ethologists animal behavior, only now it is scientific, compromise to some degree by putting with a rigorous methodology and standards some kind of restriction upon their animals. of quality equivalent to those of any other This need not, however, result in significant scientific discipline. At the same time it distortion of the animal’s behavior, and the must be noted that the work of Lorenz and ethological approach to behavior would of Ardrey attracts a good deal of fierce crit- seem to be the most objective and poten- icism from mathematically-oriented ethol- tially valuable of the behavioral sciences. ogists and psychologists. Such critics seem It should be mentioned that ethology is to feel that the Lorenzian type of ethology not just another &dquo;ism&dquo; among the plethora is unscientific, apparently because much of of recently-emerged subdisciplines of nat- the data it collects cannot be subjected to ural science. Although the term &dquo;ethology&dquo; the processes of mathematical analysis found -in its present sense-was first used in to be useful in other types of behavior English by W. M. Wheeler as recently as study. I believe that this criticism may be 1902, the history of ethology as a rigorous an unwise one. As Slobodkin (1965) has
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 363 pointed out, every empirical science has to It may have been unwise for Lorenz to develop its own standards of quality, and allow this statement to be printed on the &dquo;to insist on the theory of biology conform- dust-jacket of the book, but even so it should ing to aesthetic standards derived from not prejudice the reader against everything extant mathematics is illegitimate and is, in he says. Anyone who has seen Lorenz at fact, an imposition of metaphysical criteria work will know that he is very rigorous in- on the empirical world.&dquo; While all students deed, and can predict more accurately than of behavior must beware of &dquo;intellectual the majority of people what an animal will exercise carried out in the dark void of con- do next. He clearly has a fingerspitzengefiihl temporary ignorance of cerebral functions&dquo; -one of his favorite words, meaning (Walshe, 1957), the ethologist working with roughly, &dquo;fingertip sensitivity&dquo;-for animal animals under relatively natural conditions behavior study, and a fertile and broadly- can be confident that his activities will in- integrated mind. The Russells’ book pro- troduce a minimum of undetectable vari- vides evidence to suggest that certain kinds ables into his experiments. It is in this light of regressive thought process, notably ra- that the books here under review should tionalization, in the sense used by Freud, be considered. common to all of us-though to varying On Aggression, written by one of the degrees-are antipathetic to the broad ap- leading biologists and the most celebrated proach, and may be operative in the nega- ethologist of our time, has been reviewed tive reactions to Lorenz’s work. by a number of eminent people from several On Aggression is a book which must be fields. The variety of response to the book taken very seriously, as it provides a power- is of interest in itself, and though it cannot ful thesis to explain the behavioral break- be considered here in detail, it is worth down which has resulted in the deaths of noting that those who approve are largely more than sixty million humans since 1820 experts in other fields. These include Alsop as a result of internecine strife. Basically (1966), Gorer (1966), Koestler (1966), this thesis is that aggression in the proper and Mead (1966). Those against-all work- sense of the word is intraspecific aggression, ing somewhere in the field of animal be- and normally fulfills a species-preserving havior-are, principally, Barnett (1967), function. The fantastic aggression we see Schneirla (1966), and Zuckerman (1966). in humans today is aggression gone wrong, I believe that this antagonism from other out of hand, and now resembling in its re- behavioral scientists is only partly explained sults the predator/prey combats in which by Lorenz’ tendency to make broad sweep- the predator’s behavior has been evolved for the of the Intra- ing assertions, e.g., &dquo;I am honestly con- purpose killing prey. is in vinced that in the near future very many specific aggression normally (that is, most or all animals other than men-indeed perhaps the majority of man- man) only similar to behavior, kind-will regard as obvious and banal superficially predator which is both business and truth all that I have written in this book pleasure- not war. &dquo;The buffalo which the about intra-specific aggression and the hunting, lion fells provokes his aggression as little dangers which its perversion entails for as the which I have humanity.&dquo; appetizing turkey just seen hanging in the larder provokes mine. The difference in these inner drives can 1 For further information see Letters, Scien- tific American, May 1967, and Driver, 1967. clearly be seen in the expression movements 364 of the animal: a dog about to catch a that of intraspecific aggression. If the latter hunted rabbit has the same kind of excitedly is a fundamental characteristic of animal happy expression as he has when he greets organization, then we must be able to pos- his master or awaits some longed-for treat. tulate a selection pressure strong enough From many excellent photographs it can for it to be widely incorporated in behavior be seen that the lion, in the dramatic mo- repertoires. Lorenz deals with this problem ment before he springs, is in no way angry. convincingly and in a manner that is, bio- Growling, laying back the ears, and other logically, perfectly respectable: &dquo;The dan- well-known expression movements of fight- ger of too dense a population of an animal ing behavior are seen in predatory animals species settling in one part of the available only when they are afraid of a wildly re- biotope and exhausting all its sources of sisting prey, and even then the expressions nutrition and so starving can be obviated are only suggested.&dquo; Lorenz could quite by a mutual repulsion acting on the animals well have made his statements in behavioral of the same species, effecting their regular jargon rather than widely intelligible prose, spacing out, in much the same manner as and this would perhaps reduce some of the electrical charges are regularly distributed negative criticism. But it has been well- all over the surface of a spherical conductor. stated that the truly great scientist has no This, in plain terms, is the most important need of jargon; fundamental truths are survival value of intraspecific aggression.&dquo; self-evident when stated simply. It is the And again: &dquo;Unless the special interests of mediocre scientist who takes refuge in a social organization demand close aggre- cryptic clouds of technical verbiage. gation of its members, it is obviously most The difference between interspecific and expedient to spread the individuals of an intraspecific aggression, as Lorenz points animal species as evenly as possible over out, is that intraspecific aggression is usually the available habitat. To use a human ritualized; that is, though superficially like analogy: if, in a certain area, a larger num- mortal combat, it has certain characteristics ber of doctors, builders, and mechanics of exaggeration of action and emancipation want to exist, the representatives of these from its original occurrence (in a predator/ professions will do well to settle as far away prey context), so that the actor’s perform- from each other as possible.&dquo; This is now ance is instinctively recognized by the re- one of the well-established facts of life and actor as being something qualitatively dif- Lorenz documents it well, including his ferent from a mortal threat. And there are own careful observations of the multitude the built-in insurances of submission pos- of highly varied species of coral reef fish tures and associated inhibitions for the oc- of the Florida Keys. casions when, in social animals such as He also provides broad and compelling dogs, one individual is in real trouble in documentation of what he calls &dquo;behavioral an intraspecific contest. The gesture of analogies to morality,&dquo; including the sub- turning away the jaws (and offering the mission postures and inhibitions already side of the neck, with its thinly covered mentioned. Now comes a crucial question: jugular vein) is instinctively performed, as Why does man not have such instinctive is the cessation of attack on the part of the inhibitions? Lorenz’s answer, with which I dominant combatant. agree, is that in human evolution no It is, of course, much easier to see the such inhibitory mechanisms were necessary; survival value of interspecific combat than quick killing was impossible and a potential
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 365 victim had time to bring other methods of which industrialized, commercialized man avoidance or appeasement into play. &dquo;No has precipitated himself is actually a good selection pressure arose in the prehistory of example of an inexpedient development mankind to breed inhibitory mechanisms caused entirely by competition between preventing the killing of conspecifics until, members of the same species. Human all of a sudden, the invention of artificial beings of today are attacked by the so- weapons upset the equilibrium of killing called manager diseases, high blood pres- potential and social inhibitions.&dquo; Man then sure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and tor- was in an analogous position to that of turing neuroses; they succumb to barbarism harmless animals like doves which, when because they have no time for cultural in- under closely confined conditions, will fight terests. And all this is unnecessary, for they to such an extent that the weaker ones are could easily agree to take things more easily; killed slowly and with great suffering. theoretically they could, but in practice it Similarly, as man’s environment becomes is just as impossible for them as it is for more artificial and confined, so his aggres- the Argus pheasant to grow shorter wing sion becomes more harmful. It can be no feathers.&dquo; accident that the most humane peoples are I have quoted enough, I think, to indi- some of the more isolated groups of Es- cate Lorenz’ style and &dquo;message.&dquo; What I kimos, the Arapesh of New Guinea, the want to stress is that his comments are based Lepchas of Sikkim, the Ituri of the Congo, on a very broad, and in many cases deep, and some other technologically &dquo;backward&dquo; knowledge of the animals and the types of and isolated tribes (Gorer, 1966). behavior he discusses. And he is a scholar, Another major problem Lorenz deals with in the best sense of the word. Add to this by evolutionary analogy is the human &dquo;rat- his respect for the teaching of Charles Dar- race.&dquo; He quotes his mentor, Oskar Hein- win, and his conviction that &dquo;Unless one roth, who used to say, &dquo;Next to the wings understands the elements of a complete of the Argus pheasant, the hectic life of system as a whole, one cannot understand Western civilized man is the most stupid them at all,&dquo; and one has an idea of how product of intraspecific selectionl&dquo; The hen important his teaching-if he is right- Argus pheasant is particularly attracted to must be. the huge wing feathers of the cock, which It is, of course, one thing to recognize are decorated with beautiful eye spots. a problem such as that of human aggres- Lorenz notes: &dquo;The number of progeny sion, and another to suggest methods of produced by a cock in a certain period of alleviating that problem. But here, too, time is in direct proportion to the length Lorenz makes some powerful suggestions. of these feathers, and, even if their extreme Few people will disagree with his first sug- development is unfavorable in other ways gestion : the old &dquo;Know thyself.&dquo; And the -his unwieldiness may cause him to be ethological approach would seem to have eaten by a predator while a rival with less much to offer here. His second suggestion absurdly exaggerated wings may escape- is the psychoanalytic study of &dquo;sublimation&dquo; he will nevertheless leave more descendants or redirection as a means of controlling than will a plainer cock .... the evolution aggression. Certainly there are plenty of of the Argus pheasant has run itself into a examples from other species of intraspecific blind alley.&dquo; He compares this with the aggression being reduced by &dquo;redirected&dquo; human state: &dquo;The rushed existence into activities. And psychoanalysis would seem 366
to show that &dquo;many patterns of altogether Yet he writes with such clarity, style, and laudable behavior derive their impulses from excitement, and is, on the whole, so percep- the ’sublimation’ of aggressive or sexual tive, that one is carried along with him in drives.&dquo; The third suggestion is fairly obvi- spite of his occasional deviations from the ous but &dquo;still worth mentioning: it is the straight and narrow. After all, if a theory promotion of personal acquaintance and, is founded on data some of which are found if possible, friendship between individual to be unsound, this need not discount the members of different ideologies or nations.&dquo; rest of the data, or the theory. Lorenz indicates how this may have bene- African Genesis is subtitled &dquo;A Personal ficial results which would not necessarily Investigation into the Animal Origins and be expected. The fourth measure suggested Nature of Man.&dquo; During this investigation, is &dquo;the intelligent and responsible channel- as the book jacket tells us, &dquo;For six years ing of militant enthusiasm, in other words Mr. Ardrey commuted between the mu- helping a younger generation which, on the seums and libraries and laboratories of the one hand, is highly critical and even sus- North, and the game reserves and fossil picious, and, on the other, emotionally beds of Africa. Most of the information he starved, to find genuine causes that are sought was known only to the most ad- worth serving in the modern world.&dquo; And vanced scientific specialists and to workers this, of course, is just what voluntary service in the field. His investigations spread out organizations are attempting in various parts beyond the simple though terrible question of the world. If Lorenz is right there may concerning man’s affinity for war and be more value in such service than has been weapons. It came to include many an in- hoped for. stitution and persuasion regarded as ex- The most significant of the vast field clusively human: nationalism and patriotism, of evolutionary and behavioral phenomena private property and social order, hierarchy covered by Lorenz in his book are con- and status-seeking, even conscience. All re- sidered in more detail by Ardrey and by the vealed roots in our most ancient animal be- Russells, and their books lend considerable ginning and parallels in primate societies.&dquo; to his is weight conclusions. Ardrey not, by This is not only an accurate indication of a he has a distinct training, biologist, yet what the reader may expect from the book knack for in surveying biological topics -and in this the publishers are to be con- such a that he not the way only recognizes gratulated-but it also points to the under- works and fundamentally important workers, lying dictum of all these books: given the but also discovers and integrates important undeniable fact that our structure has matters that have hitherto been overlooked. evolved from that of preexisting species, we A hundred years ago he would probably must assume that our behavior has also, and have rescued Mendel’s work from obscurity that our structure or behavior can therefore well in advance of its actual discovery. But be evaluated in the light of the structure Ardrey’s books are-to many biologists- and behavior of our closest peculiarly frustrating. Many of his deduc- evolutionary relatives.2 This is simply a reflection of what tions seem to be sound, but, possibly be- Ardrey quite calls &dquo;the contem- cause he is not well-enough versed in evo- properly lutionary science, he spreads his net too 2 Further discussion of this and other related widely in his enthusiasm for evidence which topics may be found in Driver (1967) and supports his ideas, and the mesh is too fine. Thorpe (1966).
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 367 porary revolution in the natural sciences,&dquo; gists in America; anthropologists, palaeon- the vast leap forward in our understanding tologists, and meteorologists in London; of animal behavior and of our link to the archaeologists, anatomists, and biologists in animal world. Yet, as he points out, this South Africa; primate specialists in Central revolution &dquo;has proceeded in something Africa, reptile specialists in California and more striking than silence. It has proceeded the Transvaal, mammal specialists in Pre- in secret. Like our tiny, furry, squirrel-like, toria and Nairobi, game wardens in the vast earliest primate ancestors, seventy million reserves of Uganda, and the Congo, South years ago, the revolution has found obscur- Africa and Kenya.&dquo; It is remarkable that ity its best defense and modesty the key he has managed to integrate such a wide to its survival. For it has challenged larger range of information so acceptably to so orthodoxies than just those of science, and many specialists. Not that he is without its enemies exist beyond counting.&dquo; critics: he annoys most of us in one way or What has held back this revolutionary another; but the likelihood of his observa- information? This is a problem-and a very tions being largely correct is high. The serious one-which is partially explained validity of his conclusions may be another in the Russells’ book. Also, as Ardrey notes, matter. &dquo;A certain justification has existed until African Genesis is concerned with two now ... for the submission of the insurgent major themes: the concept of territory, de- specialists to the censorship of scientific veloped more fully in Ardrey’s second book, orthodoxy. Such higher bastions of philo- and the evidence for man having arisen sophical orthodoxy as Jefferson, Marx, and from a killer prehominid. The information Freud could scarcely be stormed by partial he provides on territory and associated mat- regiments.&dquo; But then, in 1961, when African ters such as the &dquo;pecking order&dquo; and other Genesis was first published, the &dquo;over- kinds of hierarchy is, on the whole, fairly whelming body of incontrovertible proof&dquo; sound. Ardrey has talked to the right peo- for man’s animal origin, which Ardrey con- ple and read the things he should have read. sidered a prerequisite for action, was avail- But one gets a recurring feeling of annoy- able, and he immediately began on his sec- ance when he reveals that, although he is ond book, which enlarges one particularly a convert to the field of ethology, he is important aspect of the first. And slowly, ethologically naive. He seems to find the much too slowly for some of us-for there contemporary revolution so overwhelmingly is need for haste-the real facts of life and exciting that he forgets the necessity for of death are being communicated; here by keeping the emotions rigorously under con- an enthusiastic teacher, there by a best- trol so that they do not run away with the selling book, here by experimental evidence, intellect and use it to rationalize an emo- there by generalizations acceptable to a tional bias. But I cavil too much. For the wide range of specialists (so long as they account of the contemporary revolution have not been blinded by the new medie- alone this is a very important book. It is valism which restricts the laws of nature also of great importance for the light Ardrey to those of physics, chemistry, and mathe- sheds on the various controversies concern- matics ). ing man’s immediate ancestors. It has been to Ardrey’s-and our-ad- Some 800,000 years ago there lived, vantage that he is a generalist. &dquo;I have around the edge of Africa’s Lake Victoria, listened to geologists, ecologists, and zoolo- a small, advanced, man-like ape, Austra- 368 lopithecus africanus. Ardrey gives much We must agree with Ardrey’s support of detail of the work of Raymond Dart, who Dart in this. discovered this controversial creature in But I do not agree with Ardrey’s assump- 1924. The controversy centers on Dart’s tion that man therefore was born a killer. belief that A. africanus used weapons, cer- We do not know that A. africanus was on tainly for hunting, and probably for fighting the direct line of human evolution, and if his fellows, and although the controversy he was it would have been a very unusual continues, the evidence which Ardrey pre- example of selection that would develop a sents in support of Dart’s belief is over- weapon suitable for killing conspecifics whelming. And it must be recorded that without the built-in safeguards evolved by in this context Ardrey seems to be rigorous all other well-armed animals. For the mo- in his assessment of the evidence. ment, Lorenz’s assessment seems the more Indeed, it is difficult to see why there accurate: we became human before we had has been so much resistance to the sugges- weapons with which we could kill our fel- tion that this prehominid used weapons- lows. the distal end of the humerus of a medium- In The Territorial Imperative, subtitled sized antelope as a club, and the lower jaw &dquo;A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of a small antelope for slashing-unless, as of Property and Nations,&dquo; Ardrey shows an Ardrey suggests, the reaction is a psycho- interesting maturity of biological scholar- logical one. It could well be due to the ship. Not only is he impressive in his cov- romantic fallacy that &dquo;all human behavior, erage of the field but he also shows an with certain stated exceptions, results from increasing understanding of evolutionary could from read- causes lying within the human experience.&dquo; phenomena. Anyone profit this which dedicates fit- Thus the majority of anthropologists may ing book, Ardrey to H. Eliot Howard in have rejected the suggestion that a possible tingly who, 1920, his in Bird This forebear of man was a killer because this published Territory Life. was, &dquo;until this present volume, the only would imply that man was bom a killer. book devoted solely to the innate relation- Yet there is an increasing amount of evi- between property and inanimate be- dence to indicate that this reaction is il- ship havior.&dquo; logical. We know that the California sea From Eliot Howard, Ardrey threads his otter holds a stone on its chest to use as way competently through the maze of litera- an anvil for the breaking open of clam shells ture on territory, and the complex behavioral (Hall and Schaller, 1964); chimpanzees use phenomena associated with it, up to the sticks as and throw and tools, sticks, stones, contemporary and controversial On Aggres- vegetation in both playful and aggressive sion and V. C. Wynne-Edwards’ Animal encounters (Goodhall, 1964); the wood- Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour pecker finch of the Galapagos uses a cactus ( 1962 ) . He first deals with instinct, and I spine for poking insects out of tree bark thank him for pointing out the inadequacy (Lack, 1947); and Egyptian vultures throw of a phrase which has long annoyed me stones at ostrich eggs to break them open, that of Ashley Montagu (1962) to the effect and then devour the contents (the van that &dquo;man has lost virtually all of his in- Lawick-Goodhalls, 1966). Surely we can- stincts.&dquo; not deny to a man-like ape what would be He then deals with various aspects of only a minor variation of such behavior? territorial behavior, integrating the infor-
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 369 mation we have on the maintenance of ter- important facts, and his belief in the under- ritorial boundaries, the displays associated lying importance of evolutionary mecha- with this, the various kinds of territories nisms. Now I am pleased to point out what which may be seen in the animal kingdom, may be a lasting contribution to science: and the function of territory both as a place his descriptive analysis of the kinds of social to breed and an area from which food can organization which he calls the &dquo;noyau&dquo; be gathered, and as a means of dispersing and the &dquo;nation.&dquo; the individuals of a population over the The term &dquo;noyau&dquo; is taken from the available habitat so that there is optimum French ethologist Jean-Jacques Petter (1962) benefit for the population as a whole. This &dquo;as a label for the society of inward an- means that, in some species, under certain tagonism,&dquo; and implies &dquo;a primitive evolu- conditions, a number of individuals will not tionary step towards societies characterized breed. But it is the population which is by mutual aid.&dquo; On the island of Mada- served in such cases, not the individual, gascar live thirty-odd species of lemurs- and here we may have the evolutionary be- presimian primates-which provide the bi- ginnings of what we know as altruism in ologist with a tantalizing store of evolu- man. This is not the place to consider the tionary information. Most of the species various theories of territory-anyone inter- are diurnal and have normal societies of ested should read the book. But it is the mutual aid and cooperation, but the noc- place to reiterate the underlying conviction turnal &dquo;sportive lemur&dquo; is interestingly dif- of all these books that the key to the future ferent. This species &dquo;defends a territory of lies in our evolutionary past. As Ardrey puts no more than sixty or so yards in diameter. it, &dquo;The continuity of human evolution from A little society of six or so may crowd itself the world of the animal to the world of man into an area as small as an acre, where it ensures that a human group in possession will live in perfect recrimination.&dquo; And yet of a territory will behave according to the there will be no others of the species for universal laws of the territorial principle. miles around. Why do they stay together? What we call patriotism, in other words, is The answer, of course, is a complex one, a calculable force which, released by a pre- but it will certainly be connected with the dictable situation, will animate man in a previous observation of James Fisher (1954) manner no different from other territorial who wrote that the effect of this kind of species.&dquo; There can be no doubt that this behavior &dquo;is to create ’neighborhoods’ of is basically true. Just as a territory-owning individuals who while masters of their own stickleback or herring gull will fight its definite and limited properties are bound neighbors more fiercely the farther they ven- firmly and socially to their next-door neigh- ture into its territory, so does a football bors by what in human terms would be team fight the more courageously the nearer described as a dear-enemy or rival-friend to its line it is pressed, and the academic situation, but which in bird terms should more jealously protect his inner office than more safely be described as mutual stimu- his institution. The football team is illus- lation.&dquo; This is reminiscent of Wynne- trating territorial defense, and the academic Edwards’ &dquo;brotherhood of tempered ri- the use of territory as a place where one valry.&dquo; has minimal competition with others. The biological &dquo;nation,&dquo; as Ardrey de- So far I have indicated that the value of fines it, is &dquo;a social group containing at Ardrey’s work lies in his integration of least two mature males which holds as an 370 exclusive possession a continuous area of the work of Lorenz as an outstanding scien- space, which isolates itself from others of tist. Also like Ardrey, they acknowledge its kind through outward antagonism, and our debt to Niko Tinbergen, who has done which through joint defense of its social more for ethology than anyone but Lorenz. territory achieves leadership, cooperation, His publications of 1951, 1953, and 1965 and a capacity for concerted action.&dquo; It show the scope of both his mind and his matters not whether such a nation be com- subject. posed of a few or of many individuals, or The Russells bring an impressive battery whether we consider true lemurs, howler of qualifications to bear upon the study of monkeys, Bushman bands, Greek city states, human behavior. Claire Russell is a psy- or modern human nations. The social prin- chiatrist of great experience, and W. M. S. ciple seems to be the same. Russell, who has also practiced as a psy- As Ardrey sees it, Italy, with its com- chiatrist, began his career with scholarships munal noise, argument, and general strife, in Greek and in classics and English litera- is a noyau. Britain, with its general calm ture at Oxford before becoming a success- -natural or inhibited-is a nation. There ful zoologist and writer. He has published is much to be said for, and against, both. widely in ethology, and his Evolutionary What is important here is that two major Concepts in Behavioral Science ( 1958, kinds of human social organization seem to 1959, 1961) is definitive. The Russells’ have been mapped out more than fifty background means that they have had ac- million years ago, when the older noyau- cess to animal and human behavior in the type lemurs produced nation-type offshoots. laboratory and consulting room, and in the How near the truth was the Chinese saying, vast collection of behavioral description &dquo;There is all animal in man, though there contained in classical and contemporary is not all man in the animal!&dquo; literature. They have used their opportu- In my first paragraph I noted that the nities well. operations of specialists can be a stumbling- The value of the Russells’ contribution is block to progress: &dquo;... no specialist is threefold. First, they demonstrate the evo- entitled to observe or interpret anything lutionary origins of human behavior in ways that might seem the province-or territory! which complement and supplement the -of another specialist. Ultimately this is writings of Ardrey and Lorenz. Secondly, traceable to a craving for dominance hier- they show how the approaches of ethology archies.&dquo; This is a quotation, not from and psychiatry can be used together in the Ardrey, but from the Russells’ book. Human analysis of human behavior, both in life Behavior-A New Approach is so encyclo- and in literature. And thirdly, they make a pedic in content and so erudite in presen- biological investigation of those behavioral tation that one hesitates even to attempt to qualities which we do not share with the deal with it in less than full review. How- other animals-&dquo;that capability and god-like ever, it does knit extremely well with the reason,&dquo; as Hamlet called it, or what is other books here reviewed, the four to- widely but loosely referred to as &dquo;intelli- gether showing how ethology can be ap- gence.&dquo; It is this third section of the book plied to the fundamental problems of life which is most important for our present with a potential of success perhaps un- context. equalled by any other discipline. Like As the Russells point out, the widely- Ardrey, the Russells show due regard to accepted IQ tests, whatever their sophisti-
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 371 cation, do not deal successfully with that functional groupings will survive as larger specifically human capability which sepa- single components and this may depend on rates us behaviorally from our evolutionary a process of selection. The process is thus ancestors. It is perhaps not generally real- comparable with the natural selection of ized that a person’s score in certain standard successful organisms and species in the IQ tests is almost completely unaffected by grand procession of organic evolution, and cutting off the oxygen supply to the brain we can apply to events in the individual for a considerable period (Halstead, 1947) brain all the principles observed on that or by removal of both frontal lobes of the more spacious stage.&dquo; I think this evolu- brain or of any other lobe on one side tionary point is well taken, and I shall refer (Hebb, 1942; Halstead, 1947). These tests to it again. thus indicate that a person with up to a Halstead’s technique was to apply a third of the cerebrum missing-even the battery of tests designed with the evolu- frontal cortex which is the most specifically tionary concept in mind to a wide range of human part of the brain-is as intelligent subjects, including patients with brain le- as when the brain is intact. Clearly, such sions as well as normal individuals, and tests are inaccurate indicators of &dquo;intelli- then to submit the mass of resulting data gence&dquo; if we assume brain structure and to factor analysts. These experts postulated function to have evolved together. the operation of four factors for the produc- The first biological approach to the prob- tion of the results they were given. Further lem of intelligence was made by Ward investigation of these factors (e.g., Reitan, Halstead (1947), who set out to measure 1956) indicates not only what kind of ability the activities of the brain as a progressive they subserve, but also their connection evolutionary machine. As he has said else- with the most recently evolved part of the where (1951), &dquo;Man’s strategic position in human brain-the cortex of the prefrontal the animal kingdom derives in part at least lobes. from the unusual range and quality of the The Russells have named Halstead’s fac- perceptions of which he is capable, from tors abstraction, integration, specific expres- his capacity for controlled adaptability, and sion, and exploratory drive. These names from the degrees of freedom through which reflect the modes of behavior which appear orientation can be achieved and main- to be the overt expression of the four in- tained.&dquo; The Russells point out that this telligence factors, and together they indicate constant ability to rearrange and reorganize the structure of biological intelligence. If is a fundamental of an evolutionary machine biological intelligence is-as I believe-true = ‘An evolutionary machine is made up of intelligence, then it behooves us to take due a very large number of component units, note of its structure and function, and study richly interconnected, the relations between the causes and results of its breakdown. which are not predetermined. As various Herein lies the major contribution of this inputs impinge upon the machine, the small book. units become linked together into larger The abstraction factor involves the ability transient combinations, which shift and to recognize a unit in a mass, as when we merge in kaleidoscopic fashion, like political note a black sheep in a flock, or a different parties in the parliamentary assemblies of behavioral or chemical reaction from those some modem countries. The question may to which we are accustomed. It enables us therefore arise, which of these transient to discriminate among a large number of 372 objects, people, or situations; to see the our society.&dquo; Primed with this indispens- individual in a crowd, and the wood as able report, we can proceed, in the words well as the trees. Lorenz has remarked that of Dr. Johnson, &dquo;to clear our minds of cant.&dquo; this is just what we mean by &dquo;intuition&dquo;- The specific expression factor is easily literally being able to &dquo;see into&dquo; a situation. recognized. Terms describing it are in The integration factor is probably the everyday use: &dquo;green fingers,&dquo; &dquo;a greasy most important factor of biological intelli- thumb,&dquo; &dquo;the gift of the gab,&dquo; &dquo;a light hand gence, being the most specifically human with pastry.&dquo; The overt expression of in- factor of the four. In fact, if it is as impor- telligence always involves the use of some tant as the Russells’ evidence suggests, it particular skill or skills, this varying con- may be the skeleton key to unlock the doors siderably from one person to another. A to individual fulfillment, group achievement, high degree of specific expression is equiva- and, in the long run, human survival. It lent to what is usually called &dquo;flair&dquo; or would seem to be a progressive evolutionary &dquo;talent,&dquo; while high degrees of abstraction machine par excellence. and integration produce genius. The in- Integration involves the assessment of telligence factors vary independently, doubt- units of information brought in by abstrac- less under the influence of both heredity tion. It &dquo;permits new data to be compared and upbringing, the result of which is that with old, and thus makes it possible to one may encounter a genius with little qualify a generalization.&dquo; The more efficient talent, or someone with a definite flair but the operation of the integration factor, the low general intelligence. greater the understanding of information Exploratory drive brings us new informa- received. &dquo;Integration is the organized but tion for abstraction and integration. When flexible growth of the individual’s experi- very highly developed, this factor produces ence ; a growth like that of ’poetry’ which, the eminent explorer-geographical, scien- as T. S. Eliot once pointed out, changes its tific, artistic, or whatever; but all the time whole nature every time a new poem is it is that which keeps us aware of our im- written. It hinges on a complete availability mediate environment. And to explore is to of all data, old and new, for comparison tolerate uncertainty; to be aware that the with each other and rearrangement in ever current situation may change. This is im- more realistic groupings.&dquo; A high level of portant in all human endeavor: &dquo;The gift integration must be strongly connected with that makes the supreme explorer, the scien- having an open mind-&dquo;indeed the phrase tist or artist, is not the capacity to frame is peculiarly appropriate, implying as it does a hypothesis or a mode of expression, but both receptiveness to new ideas and an the capacity resolutely to scrap them and open system of communications within.&dquo; It start again-not, of course, really from is also connected with a sense of humor scratch, for a good scientific hypothesis is which, &dquo;as has often been said, is a sense always integrated into its successor as a of the incongruous. It requires a capacity special case, and an artist makes fresh use to put two ideas in juxtaposition-especially of the devices he has discarded as such.&dquo; two of one’s own ideas, or one’s own preach- The intelligence factors, of course, form ing and one’s own practice-and see how an intimately linked system. &dquo;In setting up absurdly they clash. The sense of humor our internal models, abstraction is important, is a sort of feedback report on the state and in permitting their free interplay inte- of integration of our experience, or that of gration is vital. The exploratory drive pro-
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3 373 vides a ceaseless influx of new variability, clear the way for a true understanding of which is filtered and organized into mean- the behavior of animals, including man. By ingful patterns by the other factors.&dquo; integrating with other natural sciences, par- Now why is all this so important? The ticularly neurophysiology and psychology, answer is a simple one. If the Russells are ethology can speed the analysis of the more right-and I believe they are-biological significant behavioral processes such as intelligence is the most highly developed biological intelligence. And by an etho- manifestation of the general evolutionary logical study of the breakdown of these process of adaptive modification by infor- processes we may be able to correct the mation feedback (Russell, 1961, has called mistakes of the present and avoid making this &dquo;combinatorial selection&dquo;). This in- so many in the future. The four books here volves the development of numerous vari- reviewed give a composite picture of this ations in the population, whether it be a potential. If their message is jammed by population of genes or of organisms, and too much &dquo;noise&dquo; in the system, we may as the feeding back of useful variations into well fall back on that supreme rationaliza- the basic pool-which thus benefits as a tion of Thurber’s bad Duke: &dquo;We all have whole by the experience of individual mem- faults; mine is being wicked.&dquo; bers. Clearly, a process of integration is essential to this procedure and when it REFERENCES an The breaks down the consequences may be seri- ALSOP, J. "The Way of Aggressor," New Yorker, Sept. 10, 1966. ous. When a species, for example, becomes BARNETT, S. A. "On the Hazards of Analogies so that it cannot to specialized adapt chang- between Human Aggression and Aggression ing circumstances, then change will be in Other Animals," Scientific American, Jan. harmful. Similarly, when the free flow of 1967. information in the intelligence system is DARWIN, C. R. Journal of Researches. London, interfered with by deficiencies in the inter- 1839. —. The Species. London, 1859. nal or external environment, the individual Origin of DRIVER, P. M. "An Ethological Approach to shows irrational, automatic, proportionally the Problem of Mind." In W. Corning (ed.), and behavior. The result is nonadaptive The Mind: Physical and Biological Ap- varying degrees of isolation, rigidity, stereo- proaches to its Function. (In press.) typy, and compulsiveness-the exact oppo- FISHER, JAMES. "Evolution and Bird Sociality." sites of the free information flow, flexibility, In J. Huxleyet al., Evolution as a Process. versatility, and freedom of choice seen in London, 1954. biological intelligence. I believe that these GOODHALL, J. "Tool-using and Aimed Throw- ing in a Community of Free-Living Chim- malfunctions have been at least partially panzees," Nature, 201 (1964), 1264-66. in the reactions to Dar- operative negative GORER, G. "Man Has No Killer Instinct," New win and to in the of what Lorenz; delay York Times Magazine, Nov. 27, 1966. Ardrey calls &dquo;the contemporary revolution&dquo; HALL, K. R. L., and G. B. SCHALLER. "The in natural science; and in the schisms of the Tool-Using of the California Sea Otter &dquo;two cultures.&dquo; And they are as common in (Enhydra lutris nereis)," J. Mammal., 45: Academe as elsewhere. 287, 1964. B. S. The potential contribution of ethology to HALDANE, J. "Introducing Douglas Spald- ing," British Journal Behavior, 2, the of human conflict is thus clear. of Animal problem 1 (1954), 1-11. By acceptance of the basic facts of life HALSTEAD, W. C. Brain and Intelligence. those of evolution-ethological techniques Chicago, 1947. 374
—. "Brain and Intelligence." In L. A. —. "Evolutionary Concepts in Behavioral Jeffress (ed.), Cerebral Mechanisms in Be- Science. III: The Evolution of Behavior in havior. New York, 1951. the Individual Animal and the Principle of HEBB, D. O. "The Effect of Early and Late Combinatorial Selection," General Systems, Brain Injury upon Test Scores, and the Na- 6 (1961), 51-94. ture of Normal Adult Intelligence," Proceed- SCHNEIRLA, T. C. "Instinct and Aggression," ings of the American Philosophical Society, Natural History, 85, 10 (1966). 85 (1942), 275-92. SLOBODKIN, L. B. "On the Present Incomplete- HOWARD, H. E. Territory in Bird Life. London, ness of Mathematical Ecology," American 1920. Scientist, 53 (1965), 347-57. KOESTLER, A. "Of Geese and Men," The Ob- THORPE, W. H. "Ethology and Consciousness." server (London), Sept. 18, 1966. In J. C. Eccles (ed.), Brain and Conscious LACK, DAVID. Darwin’s Finches. London, 1947. Experience. Springer-Verlag, 1966. LORENZ, K. Introduction to Phoenix Edition of TINBERGEN, N. The Study of Instinct. Oxford, The Expression of the Emotions by Charles 1951. Darwin. Chicago, 1965. —. The Herring Gull’s World. London, MEAD, M. Review of "On Aggression" in Red- 1953. book Magazine, Nov. 1966. —. Social Behaviour in Animals. (2nd MONTAGU, M. F. ASHLEY. Culture and the edn.) London, 1965. Evolution of Man. New York, 1962. VAN LAWICK-COODHALL, J., and H. VAN LA- PETTER, J.-J. "L’Ecologie et l’Ethologie des WICK-GOODHALL. "The Use of Tools by the Lémuriens Malgaches," Mémoires du Muséum Egyptian Vulture, Neophron percnopterus," National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris), 27, Nature, 212 (1966), 1468-69. 1 (1962). WALSHE, F. M. R. "The Brain-Stem Conceived REITAN, R. M. "Investigation of Relationships as the ’Highest Level’ of Function in the between ’Psychometric’ and ’Biological’ In- Nervous System," Brain, 80 (1957), 510-39. telligence," Journal of Nervous and Mental WHEELER, W. M. "A Neglected Factor in Disease, 123 (1956), 536-41. Evolution," Science, N.S., 15, 385 (1902), RUSSELL, W. M. S. "Evolutionary Concepts in 766-74. Behavioral Science. I: Cybernetics, Dar- WHITE, G. The Natural History and Antiquities winian Theory, and Behavioral Science," of Selbourne in the County of Southampton. General Systems, 3 (1958), 18-28. London, 1798. —. "Evolutionary Concepts in Behavioral WYNNE-EDWARDS, V. C. Animal Dispersion in Science. II: Organic Evolution and the Relation to Social Behavior. Edinburgh, 1962. Genetical Theory of Natural Selection," ZUCKERMAN, S. "The Human Beast," Nature, General Systems, 4 (1959), 45-74. 212 (1966), 563-64.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XI NUMBER 3