CHAPTER XXXIV THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALTRUISTIC THERE is one form of the altruistic sentiment which man shares with all mammals and many other animals, namely, maternal affection. As regards its origin various theories have been set forth. According to Aristotle, parents love their children as being portions of themselves.1 A similar explanation of maternal affection has been given by some modern writers.2 Thus Professor Espinas regards this sentiment as modified self-love and love of property. The female, he says, at the moment when she gives birth to little ones resembling herself, has no difficulty in recognising them as the flesh of her flesh; the feeling she experiences towards them is made up of sympathy and pity, but we cannot exclude from it an idea of property which is the most solid support of sympathy. She feels and understands up to a certain point that these young ones which are herself at the same time belong to her; the love of herself, extended to those who have gone out from her, changes egoism into sympathy and the proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse.3 This hypothesis, however, seems to me to be very inadequate. It does not explain why, for instance, a bird takes more care of her eggs than of other matter segregated from 1 Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, viii. 12. 2 sq. 2 Hartley, Observations on Man, i. 496 sq. Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, p. 433. 3 Espinas, Des sociétés animales (2nd ed.), p. 444 sq., quoted by Ribot, Psychology of the Emorions, P. 280, CH. XXXIV THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT 187 her body, which may equally well be regarded as a part of herself. Nor does it account for a foster-mother's affection for her adopted offspring. Of this many instances have been noticed in the lower animals; and among some savage peoples adopted children are said to be treated by their foster-parents with the same affection as if they were their own flesh and blood.2 A very different explanation of maternal love has been given by Professor Bain. He derives parental affection from the "intense pleasure in the embrace of the young.' He observes that such a pleasure once created would associate itself with the prevailing features and aspects of the young, and give to all of these their very great interest. For the sake of the pleasure, the parent discovers the necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and comes to regard the ministering function as a part or condition of the delight." But if the satisfaction in animal contact were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, conjugal affection ought by far to surpass it in intensity; and yet, among the lower races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, conjugal affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother's love of her child. It may indeed be fairly doubted whether there is any "intense pleasure" at all in embracing a new-born baby-unless it be one's own. It seems much more likely that parents like to touch their children. because they love them, than that they love them because they like to touch them. Attraction, showing itself either by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or by the embrace, is the outward expression of tenderness. Professor Bain himself observes that as anger reaches a satisfying term by knocking some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace.5 But this by no means implies that the embrace is the cause of love; it 1 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ii. 624. 2 Murdoch,' Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 419 (Point Barrow Eskimo). Thomson, Savage Island, p. 135. Bain, Emotions and the Will, p. 140. 4 Ribot, op. cit. p. 234. only means that love has a tendency to express itself outwardly in an act of embrace. In the opinion of Mr. Spencer, again, parental love is essentially love of the weak or helpless. This instinct, he remarks, is not adequately defined as that which attaches a creature to its young. Though most frequently and most strongly displayed in this relation, the so-called parental feeling is really excitable apart from parenthood; and the common trait of the objects which arouse it is always relative weakness or helplessness.1 This hypothesis undoubtedly contains part of the truth. That the maternal instinct is in some degree love of the helpless is obvious from the fact that, among those of the lower animals which are not gregarious, mother and young separate as soon as the latter are able to shift for themselves; nay, in many cases they are actually driven away by her. Moreover, in species which are so constituted that the young from the very outset can help themselves there is no maternal love. These facts indicate where we have to look for the source of this sentiment. When the young are born in a state of utter helplessness somebody must take care of them, or the species cannot survive, or, rather, such a species could never have come into existence. The maternal instinct may thus be assumed to owe its origin to the survival of the fittest, to the natural selection of useful spontaneous variations. This is also recognised by Mr. Spencer; 2 but his theory fails to explain the indisputable fact that there is a difference between maternal love and the mere love of the helpless. Even in a gregarious species mothers make a distinction between their own offspring and other young. During my stay among the mountaineers of Morocco I was often struck by the extreme eagerness with which in the evening, when the flock of ewes and the flock of lambs were reunited, each mother sought for her own lamb, and each lamb for its own mother. A similar 1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ii. 623 sq. See also Hartley, op. cit. i. 497. 2 Spencer, op. cit. ii. 623. discrimination has been noticed even in cases of conscious adoption. Brehm tells us of a female baboon which had so capacious a heart that she not only adopted young monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and cats which she continually carried about; yet her kindness did not go so far as to share food with her adopted offspring, although she divided everything quite fairly with her own young ones. To account for the maternal sentiment we must therefore assume the existence of some other stimulus besides the signs of helplessness, which produces, or at least strengthens, the instinctive motor response in the mother. This stimulus, so far as I can see, is rooted in the external relationship in which the offspring from the beginning stand to the mother. She is in close proximity to her helpless young from their tenderest age; and she loves them because they are to her a cause of pleasure. În various animal species the young are cared for not only by the mother, but by the father as well. This is the general rule among birds: whilst the hatching of the eggs and the chief part of the rearing-duties belong to the mother, the father acts as a protector, and provides food for the family. Among most of the mammals, on the other hand, the connections between the sexes are restricted to the time of the rut, hence the father may not even see his young. But there are also some mammalian species in which male and female remain together even after the birth of the offspring and the father defends his family against enemies.2 Among the Quadrumana this seems to be the rule.3 All the best authorities agree that the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee live in families. When the female is pregnant the male builds a rude nest in a tree, where she is delivered; and he spends the night crouching at the foot of the tree, protecting the female and their young one, which are in the nest above, from the nocturnal attacks of leopards. Passing from the 1 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 70. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. II sq. highest monkeys to the savage and barbarous races of men, we meet with the same phenomenon. In the human race the family consisting of father, mother, and offspring is probably a universal institution, whether founded on a monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous marriage. And, as among the lower animals having the same habit, whilst the immediate care of the children chiefly belongs to the mother, the father is the guardian of the family.1 The stimuli to which the paternal instinct responds are apparently derived from the same circumstances as those which call into activity the maternal instinct, that is, the helplessness and the nearness of the offspring. Wherever this instinct exists, the father is near his young from the beginning, living together with the mother. And here again the sentimental response is in all probability the result of a process of natural selection, which has preserved a mental disposition necessary for the existence of the species. Among birds paternal care is indispensable. Equal and continual warmth is the first requirement for the development of the embryo and the preservation of the young ones; and for this the mother almost always wants the assistance of the father, who provides her with necessaries, and sometimes relieves her of the brooding. Among mammals, again, whilst the young at their tenderest age can never do without the mother, the father's aid is generally not required. That the Primates form an exception to this rule is probably due to the small number of young, the female bringing forth but one at a time, and besides, among the highest apes and in man, to the long period of infancy. If this is true we may assume that the paternal instinct occurred in primitive man, as it occurs, more or less strongly developed, among the anthropoid apes and among existing savages. By origin closely allied to the paternal feeling is the attachment between individuals of different sex, which 1 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 14 sqq. 2 See ibid. p. 20 sqq.; Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, ii. 342 sa. |