Morality 



Primitive legislation displays a revolting bru- 

 tality in this respect. 



Things have improved considerably since 

 then, though the ancient barbarism has not 

 been wholly abolished. Is there any lack of 

 people among ourselves to whom morality 

 is reduced to a fear of the police? Could we 

 not find many who rear their children, as we 

 breed Rabbits, to make a profit out of them? 

 It has been necessary to formulate the 

 promptings of conscience into a strict law in 

 order to save the child, up to the age of thir- 

 teen, from the hell of the factories where the 

 poor little fellow's future was destroyed for 

 a few halfpence a day. 



Though animals have no morality, which 

 is a thing troublesome to acquire and always 

 undergoing improvement in the brains of the 

 philosophers, they have their command- 

 ments, laid down in the beginning, immu- 

 table, imperious and as deeply imprinted in 

 their being as the need to breathe and eat. 

 At the head of the commandments stands 

 maternal solicitude. Since life's primary ob- 

 ject is the continuation of life, it is also essen- 

 tial that the fragile beginnings of existence 

 should be made possible. It is the mother's 

 duty to see to this. 



169 



