190 Chapter IV. 



Let us briefly sum up the results of our discus- 

 sion on the nursing instinct of animals. In this respect 

 all animals obey the same psychological laws. Every- 

 where the inclination of nursing and rearing the young 

 proves to be a sensitive instinct, entirely different from, 

 and even excluding, individual reflection and conscious- 

 ness of duty. This is the case both in the highest 

 mammals and in ants; for the latter even far surpass 

 the highest mammals by their quasi-intelligent freedom 

 of choice in rearing the different castes, and by an 

 attachment to their charges verging on heroic unsel- 

 fishness. With all animals the care of the young is 

 directed exclusively by sensitive impulses and percep- 

 tions, which, under normal circumstances, are suitably 

 regulated both for preserving their own species and 

 for maintaining the equilibrium between different 

 species. Yet this appropriate correlation is far beyond 

 the ken of the animal; hence, in the nursing of ani- 

 mals there is no question of any "consciousness of 

 duty." Man alone by virtue of his intellect perceives 

 the relations of consanguinity and the connections 

 resulting therefrom; he alone has an intellectual 

 notion of "parents" and "children"; only with him 

 can there be question of the moral duties of parents 

 toward their children. True, also in man motherly 

 love is founded on a sensitive instinct; but, at the 

 same time, it is spiritual, because the mother knows 

 that she is the mother of this child, and because this 

 knowledge with the resultant consciousness of the 

 duty of attending to the welfare of the child, lasts for 

 life. In man the love of parents toward their chil- 

 dren and the care they bestow on them rises far above 



