Mind in Animals. 397 



found. But we must look to man if we would understand 

 the lower animals. Even human nature must attain a high 

 state of development before filial love can find any place in 

 the affections. In savages it barely exists at all, and certainly 

 does not survive into mature years. It is the glory of the 

 North American Indian boy, at as early an age as possible, 

 to despise his mother and defy his father. And the women 

 are just as bad as the men. Rejoicing in the pride of youth 

 and strength, they utterly despise the elder and feeble 

 women, even though they be their own mothers, and will 

 tear from their hands the food they are about to eat, on the 

 plea that old women are of no use, and that the food would 

 be much better employed in giving nourishment to the 

 young and strong. The Fijians have not the least scruple 

 in burying a father alive when he becomes infirm, and assist 

 in strangling a mother that she may keep him company in 

 the land of spirits. Both the Bosjesmen of South Africa and 

 the Australian seem to have not the least idea that any duty 

 is owing to a parent from a child, nor have they much 

 notion of duty from a parent toward the child. If the father 

 be angry with any one for any reason, he has a way of 

 relieving his feelings by driving his spear through the body 

 of his wife or child, whichever one of the two happens to be 

 the nearer. Even the mother treats her child with less con- 

 sideration than a cow does her calf, and leaves the little 

 creature to shift for itself at an age when the children of 

 civilized parents are hardly thought fit to be left alone for a 

 few minutes. This being the case with parental love, it may 

 be readily imagined that filial affection can have not the 

 slightest chance for development, and it is very much to be 

 questioned whether in the savage it can really be said to 

 exist at all in the sense understood by enlightened peoples. 

 Therefore, as in the lower human races, we find that filial 

 love either is very trifling, or is absolutely non-existent, need 

 we wonder that in the lower animals such few, if any, indica- 

 tions of its presence should be found ? 



