The origin and development of the moral ideas

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 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.4 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.5

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.”6 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.7 Professor Bain himself observes that as anger reaches a satisfying term by knocking some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace.8 But this by no means implies that the embrace is the cause of love; it 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.9 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;10 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 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.11 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.

In 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.12 Among the Quadrumana this seems to be the rule.13 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 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.14

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.15 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 induces male and female to remain with one another beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. It is obvious that, where the generative power is restricted to a certain season—a peculiarity which primitive man seems to have shared with other mammals16—it cannot be the sexual instinct that causes the prolonged union of the sexes, nor can I conceive any other egoistic motive that could account for this habit. Considering that the union lasts till after the birth of the offspring and that it is accompanied with parental care, I conclude that it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. The tie which joins them seems therefore, like parental affection, to be an instinct developed through natural selection. The tendency to feel some attachment to a being which has been the cause of pleasure—in this case sexual pleasure—is undoubtedly at the bottom of this instinct. Such a feeling may originally have induced the sexes to remain united and the male to protect the female even after the sexual desire was gratified; and if procuring great advantage to the species in the struggle for existence, conjugal attachment would naturally have developed into a specific characteristic.

We have reason to believe that the germ of this sentiment occurred already in our earliest human ancestors, that marriage, in the natural history sense of the term, is a habit transmitted to man from some ape-like progenitor.17 In the course of evolution conjugal affection has increased both in intensity and complexity; but advancement in civilisation has not at every step been favourable to its development. When restricted to men only, a higher culture on the contrary tends to alienate husband and wife, as is the case in Eastern countries and as was the case in ancient Greece. Another fact leading to conjugal apathy is the custom which compels the women before marriage to live strictly apart from the men. In China it often happens that the parties have not even seen each other till the wedding day;18 and in Greece Plato urged in vain that young men and women should be more frequently permitted to meet one another, so that there should be less enmity and indifference in the married life.19 Conjugal love is both a cause and an effect of monogamy; but, as we shall see subsequently, the course of civilisation does not involve a steady progress towards stricter monogamy. The notions about women also influence the emotions felt towards them; and we have noticed that the great religions of the world have generally held them in little regard.20 In its fully developed form the passion which unites the sexes is perhaps the most compound of all human feelings. Mr.

Spencer thus sums up the masterly analysis he has given of it:—“Round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love, of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call love.”21

The duration of conjugal and parental feelings varies extremely. Most birds, with the exception of those belonging to the Gallinaceous family, when pairing do so once for all till either one or the other dies;22 whereas among the mammals man and possibly some apes23 are the only species whose conjugal unions last any considerable time after the birth of the offspring. Among many of the lower races of men lifelong marriages seem to be the rule, and among a few separation is said to be entirely unknown; but there is abundant evidence that marriage has, upon the whole, become more durable with advancing civilisation.24 One cause of this is that conjugal affection has become more lasting. And the greater duration of this sentiment may be explained partly from the refinement of the uniting passion, involving appreciation of mental qualities which last long after youth and beauty have passed away, and partly also from the greater durability of parental feelings, which form a tie not only between parents and children, but between husband and wife.

The parental feelings originally only last as long as the young are unable to shift for themselves—the paternal feeling possibly less. As Mr. Fiske observes, “where the infancy is very short, the parental feeling, though intense while it lasts, presently disappears, and the offspring cease to be distinguished from strangers of the same species. And in general the duration of the feelings which insure the protection of the offspring is determined by the duration of the infancy.”25 Among certain savages parental love is still said to be restricted to the age of helplessness. We are told that the affection of a Fuegian mother for her child gradually decreases in proportion as the child grows older, and ceases entirely when it reaches the age of seven or eight; thenceforth the parents in no way meddle with the affairs of their son, who may leave them if he likes.26 When the parental feelings became more complex, through the association of other feelings, as those of property and pride, they naturally tended to extend themselves beyond the limits of infancy and childhood. But the chief cause of this extension seems to lie in the same circumstances as made man a gregarious animal. Where the grown-up children continued to stay with their parents, parental affection naturally tended to be prolonged, not only by the infusion into it of new elements, but by the direct influence of close living together. It was, moreover, extended to more distant descendants.

It is an old truth that children’s love of their parents is generally much weaker than the parents’ love of their children. The latter is absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the species, the former is not;27 though, when a richer food-supply favoured the formation of larger communities, filial attachment must have been of advantage to the race.28 No individual is born with filial love. However, Aristotle goes too far when saying that, whilst parents love their children from their birth upward, “children do not begin to love their parents until they are of a considerable age, and have got full possession of their wits and faculties.”29 Under normal circumstances the infant from an early age displays some attachment to its parents. Professor Sully tells us of a girl, about seventeen months old, who received her father after a few days absence with special marks of affection, “rushing up to him, smoothing and stroking his face and giving him all the toys in the room.”30 Filial love is retributive; the agreeable feeling produced by benefits received makes the individual look with pleasure and kindliness upon the giver. And here again the affection is strengthened by close living together, as appears from the cooling effect of long separation of children from their parents. But the filial feeling is not affection pure and simple, it is affection mingled with regard for the physical and mental superiority of the parent.31 As the parental feeling is partly love of the weak and young, so the filial feeling is partly regard for the strong and (comparatively) old.