214 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



which never dies. This is different from the 

 mother-instinct, the mother-passion. The oak and 

 the amoeba respond to the mother-principle. It is 

 a law of life; it is one of the constants of being. 

 The mother-instinct or passion, on the other hand, 

 occurs only among the higher animals; occurs 

 not sporadically quite, for it is common enough ; 

 yet while generally found, and while one of the 

 strongest, most interesting, most beautiful of ani- 

 mal traits, it is at the same time the most indi- 

 vidual and the least constant. 



This cow of my neighbor's that I hear lowing 

 is an entirely gentle creature ordinarily, but with 

 a calf at her side she will pitch at any one who 

 approaches her. And there is no other cow of 

 the herd that mourns so long when her calf is 

 taken away. The mother in her is stronger, more 

 enduring, than in any of the other nineteen in the 

 barn. In my own cow it is hardly more than blind 

 principle, hardly advanced beyond the oak tree's 

 feeling for its acorns, or the amoeba's for its 

 divided self. 



Out of the mother-principle there develops, far 

 down the animal scale, the sexless, neuter, mother- 

 less mother, the parent. It is out of this mere 



