MORAL SENSE, 119 



as I have witnessed, utterly disregard foxes. What a 

 strong feeling of inward satisfaction must impel a bird so 

 full of activity, to brood day after day over her eggs. 

 Migratory birds are quite miserable if stopped from migra- 

 ting; perhaps they enjoy starting on their long flight; but 

 it is hard to believe that the poor pinioned goose, described 

 by Audubon, which started on foot at the proper time for 

 its journey of probably more than a thousand miles, could 

 have felt any joy in doing so. Some instints are determined 

 solely by painful feelings, as by fear, which leads to self- 

 preservation, and is in some cases directed toward special 

 enemies. No one, I presume, can analyze the sensations 

 of pleasure or pain. In many instances, however, 

 it is probable that instincts are persistently followed 

 from the mere force of inheritance, without the stimulus 

 of either pleasure or pain. A young pointer, when it first 

 scents game, apparently cannot help pointing. A squirrel 

 in a cage who pats the nuts which it cannot eat, as if to 

 bury them in the ground, can hardly be thought to act 

 thus, either from pleasure or pain. Hence the common 

 assumption that men must be impelled to every action by 

 experiencing some pleasure or pain may be erroneous. 

 Although a habit may be blindly and implicitly followed, 

 independently of any pleasure or pain felt at the moment, 

 yet if it be forcibly and abruptly checked, a vague sense of 

 dissatisfaction is generally experienced. 



It has often been assumed that animals were in the first 

 place rendered social, and that they feel as a consequence 

 uncomfortable when separated from each other, and com- 

 fortable while together; but it is a more probable view that 

 these sensations were first develoj^ed in order that those 

 animals which would profit by living in society should be 

 induced to live together, in the same manner as the sense 

 of hunger and the pleasure of eating were, no doubt, first 

 acquired in order to induce animals to eat. The feeling of 

 pleasure from society is probably an extension of the 

 parental or filial affections, since the social instinct seems 

 to be developed by the young remaining for a long time 

 with their parents; and this extension may be attributed in 

 part to habit, but chiefly to natural selection. AVith those 

 animals which were benefited by living in close association, 

 tlie individuals which took the great^^-st pleasure in society 

 would best escape various dangers, while those that cared 



