426 Animal Depravity. (October, 
whether man’s ill-treatment of his unfortunate fellows is not 
the ultimate transformation of the very same instinct. 
But, further, the alleged instinct is not common to all 
gregarious animals. Monkeys and baboons cherish and 
defend the young, the helpless, and the wounded of their 
own species. . Ants will take great pains to rescue a mem- 
ber of their community who is in distress. 
Looking in a different direction, we must acknowledge 
that among viviparous animals and birds, the females are, as 
a general rule, no less careful of their young than are 
human mothers. In thus a¢ting they are undoubtedly obey- 
ing one of the “‘ laws” of their nature. But they can also 
transgress such law, just as we occasionally find a woman 
who will neglect, ill-treat, or even kill her child. So is it 
with female brutes. Sometimes, though rarely, they will 
abandon or destroy their young. ‘This is a fact well known 
to the breeders of tame animals. ‘The seller of a mare, a 
cow, or a sow, is often asked by an intending purchaser, 
‘*Is she a good mother?” It must be remarked that neg- 
lect of family is by no means the invariable result of want 
of food, or of danger and annoyance. Birds will, as is well 
known, sometimes forsake their nests from fear. But a hen 
has been known to leave her chickens to the mercy of acci- 
dents without any conceivable motive save caprice, or the 
want of ordinary natural affection. Cats, though ordinarily 
very affectionate mothers, and sows, sometimes devour their 
young. Here, therefore, we find, again, that the lower ani- 
mals are not bound down by absolute necessity to one 
unvarying line of conduct. Like man, they have the power 
to deviate from what is for them natural, normal, or right. 
Occasionally they make use of such power. What may be 
the causes of, or the motives for, such transgression, is not 
here the question. Enough for us that it exists. 
We now come to a part of the subject which, though 
essential to our argument, we cannot enter into at any 
length. Do brutes invariably obey the “‘law of theif 
being”? as regards the mutual relations of the sexes? 
Far from it. The nearer brutes approach to man, the 
more they are inclined to sin against what, in modern cant- 
ology, is exclusively styled ‘‘ morality.” With animals 
which pair conjugal fidelity is, indeed, more general than 
with mankind. A petty negro chief laughed at the notion 
of keeping to one wife, ‘‘ like the monkeys.” Still it is far 
from being universal, and nowhere are exceptions more 
frequently found than among pigeons, which with a rare 
depth of wicked satire, have been selected as types of matri- 
monial faith, 
