CHAPTER XXI 

 COURTSHIP IN ANIMALS AND MAN 



THE German poet Schiller arrived long ago at the 

 conclusion that the machinery of the world is driven 

 by hunger and by love. If we join with hunger, which is 

 the craving of the individual for nourishment, the activities 

 which aim at self-defence, — whether against competitors 

 for food, against would-be devourers, or against dangers 

 to life and limb, from storm, flood, and temperature, — 

 we may accept Schiller's statement as equivalent to this, 

 namely, that the activities and the mechanisms of living 

 things are related to two great ends — the preservation 

 of the individual and the preservation of the race. 

 " Love," or what we should call in more discriminating 

 language " amorousness," or the " mating hunger," is 

 the absolute and inherent attribute of living things upon 

 which the preservation of the race depends. The pre- 

 servation of the individual is of less importance in the 

 scheme of Nature than the preservation of the race, and 

 we find that food-hunger and the risk of dangers of all 

 kinds to the continuance of an individual life are made 

 of no account when satisfaction of mate-hunger and the 

 preservation and perpetuation of the race requires the 

 sacrifice or the shortening of the life, or the permanent 

 distortion or self-immolation of the individual. Eccentric 

 behaviour and strange exaggeration of form and colour, 



as judged by the standard of preservation of the in- 



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