THE EVOLUTION OF A MOTHER. 289 



this child is in trouble the Mother will observe the 

 signs of pain. Its cry will awaken associations, and 

 in some dull sense the Mother will feel with it. But 

 "feeling with another" is the literal translation of 

 the name of a second virtue — Sympathy. From feel- 

 ing with it, the parent will sooner or later be led to do 

 something to help it ; then it will do more things to 

 help it ; finally it will be always helping it. Now, to 

 care for things is to become Careful ; to tend things is 

 to become Tender. Here are four virtues — Patience, 

 Sympathy, Carefulness, Tenderness — already dawning 

 upon mankind. 



On occasion Sympathy will be called out in unusual 

 ways. Crises will occur — dangers, famines, sick- 

 nesses. At first the Mother will be unable to meet 

 these extreme demands — her fund of Sympathy is too 

 poor. She cannot take any exceptional trouble, or for- 

 get herself, or do anything very heroic. The child, 

 unable to breast the danger alone, dies. It is well 

 that this should be so. It is the severity and right- 

 eous justice of Nature — the tragedy of Ivan Ivan- 

 ovitch anticipated by Evolution. A Mother who has 

 failed in helpfulness must leave no successor to per- 

 petuate her unworthiness in posterity. Somewhere 

 else, however, developing along similar lines, there is 

 another fractionally better Mother. When the emer- 

 gency occurs, she rises to the occasion. For one hour 

 she transcends herself. That day a cubit is added to 

 the moral stature of mankind; the first act of Self- 

 Sacrifice is registered" in favor of the human race. It 

 may or may not be that the child will acquire its 

 Mother's virtue. But unselfishness has scored; its 

 child has proved itself fitter to survive than the child 

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