Care of the Young in the Animal Kingdom. 189 



normal circumstances, require nursing. Encaged she- 

 apes often dispute every bite with their offspring, 

 although they themselves have enough to eat; yea, 

 they would even allow their "darling children" to 

 starve, unless they were prevented by force, or unless 

 the young possessed the strength and agility to get 

 at the food in spite of the envy and greediness of their 

 "dear mamma." 



Critical psychology cannot but regard these phe- 

 nomena as evident proofs, that even the highest 

 animals are unreasonable beings, whose actions are 

 guided only by instinctive impulses. Under normal 

 conditions, the nursing instinct which serves to pre- 

 serve the species, is, in animals, with regard to their 

 own young, stronger than hunger, which provides for 

 the preservation of the individual ; the higher law of 

 preserving the species demands so. Hence, in the 

 beginning the mother-ape suckles and feeds her young 

 with unrivalled "unselfishness," whereas later on she 

 grudges it every bite; hence apes hug and nurse the 

 young of strangers with every sign of affection, 

 whilst at the same time they deny them food and 

 cruelly allow them to starve ; hence the worker-ants 

 nurse with motherly tenderness the eggs not laid by 

 themselves, whereas for the most part they devour 

 the eggs, which they have laid by way of partheno- 

 genesis. Their natural duties being those of nurses 

 and not of mothers, these loving aunts then become 

 cannibals and monsters of cruelty, because their 

 instinct of eating is subordinated to that of nursing 

 not by intelligence or consciousness of duty, but by 

 the appropriate disposition of their sensitive appetite. 



