hakyll-skeleton/posts/1902-05-01-mutual-aid.rst

---
title: "Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution"
author: Pyotr Kropotkin
tags: reciproka
---

Each time, however, that an attempt to return to this old principle was made,
it's fundamental idea itself was widened. From the clan it was extended to the
stem, to the federation of stems, to the nation, and finally—in ideal, at
least—to the whole of mankind. It was also refined at the same time. In
primitive Buddhism, in primitive Christianity, in the writings of some of the
Mussulman teachers, in the early movements of the Reform, and especially in the
ethical and philosophical movements of the last century and of our own times,
the total abandonment of the idea of revenge, or of “due reward”—of good for
good and evil for evil—is affirmed more and more vigorously. The higher
conception of “no revenge for wrongs,” and of freely giving more than one
expects to receive from his neighbours, is proclaimed as being the real
principle of morality—a principle superior to mere equivalence, equity, or
justice, and more conducive to happiness. And man is appealed to to be guided
in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best
tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being.

  In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest
  beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of
  our ethical conceptions;

and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not
mutual struggle—has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the
present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of
our species.