Nature and Human Ideals 123 



into animal virtues, such as affection, self-sacrifice, 

 parental care, and kin-sympathy. That these have 

 had "survival value" was emphasized by Darwin, and 

 some of his disciples have followed him. One of man's 

 steps has been to make ideals of these other-regarding 

 virtues, just as of the others; and while he does not 

 require Nature's sanction for his ethics, it is more 

 than interesting to know that the momentum of in- 

 tegrative evolution is with us at our best. In the 

 system of which we form a part the first places are 

 given to creatures whose very name suggests mother. 

 The rewards of survival and success, meaning espe- 

 cially a joyous, free, and masterful life — surely 

 something of a satisfaction in itself — have come to 

 creatures that balance self-realization with self- 

 subordination. Our finest British mammal, the otter, 

 might be taken as a symbol of the virile virtues ; but, 

 on the other hand, what a climax of self-forgetful- 

 ness, on the maternal side at least ! 



The animals of the sea are sometimes divided into 

 the Nekton and the Plankton, the swimmers and the 

 drifters, and so it is also with mankind. The drifters 

 exist casually ; the swimmers command their course by 

 ideals. What the biologist would insist upon is that 

 these ideals must include the other-regarding as well 

 as the self-regarding virtues, and the self-regarding 

 as well as the other-regarding. For man, unless he 

 becomes one of the Plankton, it is impossible to give 

 up ideals. That were a surrender of one of his pre- 

 rogatives. The problem is to keep a balance between 

 the hunger-ideals and the love-ideals, and to pitch 



