THE FAERY YEAR 



hid the ground. Wild chervil, too, is beginning to 

 blossom, a despised wild flower on the whole, yet 

 with an almost evergreen leaf as delicate in tracery 

 as that of lady fern or maidenhair. 



Animals and Morality 



We hear a good deal about the kindness of 

 various animals to each other. Adult birds of one 

 species will feed and tend the young of another, even 

 in a wild state. Young cuckoos may be fed by 

 other birds than those that have hatched them. But 

 here a special instinct dominates that of the nesting, 

 brooding bird. Even these cases are not, I imagine, 

 very common. But of " kindness," in the ordinary 

 sense in which we use it of human relations, there are 

 surely very few authentic instances among the lower 

 animals. The sexual and parental instincts are often 

 beautiful and usually very strong, though short-lived. 

 But charity, mercy, pity, self-sacrifice do these 

 really exist in the known animal universe outside 

 man ? 



Two things filled Kant with astonishment " the 

 starry hosts above and the moral law within." Can 

 it be seriously held there is anything in the nature 

 of a " moral law " among lower animals ? I have 

 never been able to see a sign of it, whilst watching 

 animals of many species with sympathy and admira- 

 tion. Courtesies between the sexes, particularly 

 among birds, exquisite as those among human 

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