182 THE CONTEOL OF LIFE 



virtues. The kindly instinct which mothering ex- 

 presses, which is very strong in many who are not 

 mothers, is not a strictly sex-hnked character ; it passes 

 in inheritance to sons as well as to daughters, though 

 the seeds often find the masculine soil rather stony 

 ground. There is no allusion here to the occurrence 

 of sex-intergrades, which cannot be regarded as quite 

 normal ; as Sancho Panza the wise said, we like men 

 to be men and women to be women, equally able in 

 their own ways, which, happily, are not quite the same 

 ways. But experimental work in regard to lower crea- 

 tures shows that an excellence primarily gained by one 

 sex may become in a measure the property of the other 

 also, unless it happens to be sex-linked, or is handi- 

 capped in its expression by the general constitution 

 of the opposite sex. 



Fathers have doubtless also made their contribution 

 to the common human treasure of good-will. But if 

 women have perhaps contributed most along the line 

 of maternal virtues, men have probably contributed 

 most along the line of the quahties of lovers. And 

 the counterpart of men's excellencies as lovers may 

 become part of the inheritance of daughters as well 

 as sons. No one knows enough to gauge the role that 

 the quahties of the lover have played in the evolution 

 of the human mind, but let us get away from thinking 

 of it in an easy-going or little-minded way. Darwin 

 showed in his Descent of Man how much might be trace- 

 able to preferential mating and its sifting ; and he 

 did not exhaust the inquiry. The finding and winning 



