POTENTIAL BETWEEN BRAINS 257of existence dis appears and is replaced by cooperation. Th at creates the
conditions for the evolution of greater “intellectual faculties,” he sug-
gested, in turn securing survival. He emphasized again that the fi ttest
are not those with the greatest physical strength or most cunning, but
those who learn to mutually support one another for the welfare of the
group as a whole.
Kropotkin complained that, “Unhappily, these remarks, which might
have become the basis of fruitful researches, were overshadowed by the
masses of facts gathered for the purpose of illustrating the consequences
of a real competition for life.”^31 Th is seems to have been forgotten in
today’s haste to reduce humans to the Machiavellian individualist in a
free market economy.
As it is, among nonhuman primates, chimps alone seem to exhibit oc-
casional cooperative hunting. Reported examples include raids on neigh-
boring groups for killing some of the males and capturing some of the
females; or opportunistically predating on other primates, small pigs,
and so on. It is diffi cult to be sure from sporadic observations what the
intentions, cognitions, and motivations behind such rare be hav iors really
are, but they may well indicate rudimentary social cooperation. As such
it suggests a kind of fl icker of true cooperation at this level of evolution.
As we have seen, though, that be hav ior occurs in other social mammals
to a much greater extent.
Since Darwin, the intellectual gap between humans and other pri-
mates has remained the most challenging prob lem for a theory of evo-
lution. Perhaps we need to ask: Is there some other factor? Perhaps the
answer has already been hinted at in this chapter— and even by Darwin
himself. Indeed, the argument to follow is that the evolutionary pathway
to humans took another course, based on the cognitive demands of true
cooperation and other aspects of social organ ization— that is, the further
evolution of intelligent systems rather than fi xed adaptations. Th at is the
subject of the next chapter.
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