120 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



least for their comrades, and lived solitary, would perish in 

 greater numbers. With respect to the origin of the parental 

 and filial affections, which apparently lie at the base of the 

 social instincts, we know not the steps by which they have 

 been gained; but we may infer that it has been to a large 

 extent through natural selection. So it has almost cer- 

 tainly been with the unusual and opposite feeling of hatred 

 between the nearest relations, as with the worker-bees 

 which kill their brother drones, and with the queen bees 

 which kill their daughter queens; the desire to destroy 

 their nearest relations having been in this case of service to 

 the community. Parental affection, or some feeling which 

 replaces it, has been developed in certain animals extremely 

 low in the scale, for example, in star-fishes and spiders. 

 It is also occasionally present in a few members alone in a 

 whole group of animals, as in the genus Forficula, or 

 earwigs. 



The all-important emotion of sympathy is distinct from 

 that of love. A mother may passionately love her sleep- 

 ing and passive infant, but she can hardly at such times 

 be said to feel sympathy for it. The love of a man for 

 his dog is distinct from sympathy, and so is that of a dog 

 for his master. Adam Smith formerly argued, as has 

 Mr. Bain recently, that the basis of sympathy lies in our 

 strong retentiveness of former states of pain or pleasure. 

 Hence, ^'^the sight of another person enduring hunger, 

 cold, fatigue, revives in us some recollection of the 

 states, which are painful even in idea.''^ We are thus 

 impelled to relieve the sufferings of another in order that 

 our own painful feelings may be at the same time relieved. 

 In like manner we are led to participate in the pleasures of 

 others.* But I cannot see how this view explains the fact 

 that sympathy is excited, in an immeasurably stronger 

 degree, by a beloved, than by an indifferent person. 



* See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith's " Theory of 

 Moral Sentiments." Also Mr. Bain's "Mental and Moral Science," 

 1868, pp. 244 and 275-282. Mr. Bain states, that " sympathy is, in- 

 directly, a source of pleasure to the sympathizer;" and he accounts 

 for this through reciprocity. He remarks that "the person bene- 

 fited, or others in his stead, may make up, by sympathy and good 

 offices returned, for all the sacrifice." But if, as appears to be the 

 case, sympathy is strictly an instinct, its exercise would give direct 

 pleasure, in the same manner as the exercise, as before remarked, of 

 almost every other instinct. 



