CHAPTER XXI 

 COURTSHIP IN ANIMALS AND MAN 



THE German poet Schiller arrived long ago at the ^ 

 conclusion that the machinery of the world is driven f^ 

 by hunger and by love. If we join with hunger, which is "^ 

 the craving of the individual for nourishment, the activities 

 which aim at self-defence, — whether against competitors 

 for food, against would-be devourers, or against dangers 

 to life and limb, from storm, flood, and temperature, — 

 we may accept Schiller's statement as equivalent to this, 

 namely, that the activities and the mechanisms of living 

 things are related to two great ends — the preservation 

 of the individual and the preservation of the race. 

 *' Love," or what we should call in more discriminating 

 language " amorousness," or the " mating hunger," is 



I the absolute and inherent attribute of living things upon 

 which the preservation of the race depends. The pre- 

 servation of the individual is of less importance in the 

 scheme of Nature than the preservation of the race, and 

 we find that food-hunger and the risk of dangers of all 



\ kinds to the continuance of an individual life are made 

 of no account when satisfaction of mate-hunger and the 

 preservation and perpetuation of the race requires the 

 sacrifice or the shortening of the life, or the permanent 

 distortion or self-immolation of the individual. Eccentric 



j behaviour and strange exaggeration of form and colour, 



' as judged by the standard of preservation of the in- 



189 



il 



