INTRODUCTION 



development of Other-ism, as Altruism — its imme- 

 diate and inevitable outcome. Watch any higher 

 animal at that most critical of all hours — for itself, 

 and for its species — the hour when it gives birth 

 to another creature like itself. Pass over the 

 purely physiological processes of birth ; observe the 

 behaviour of the animal-mother in presence of the 

 new and helpless life which palpitates before her. 

 There it lies, trembling in the balance between 

 life and death. Hunger tortures it ; cold threatens 

 it ; danger besets it ; its blind existence hangs by 

 a thread. There is the opportunity of Evolution. 

 There is an opening appointed in the physical 

 order for the introduction of a moral order. If 

 there is more in Nature than the selfish Struggle 

 for Life the secret can now be told. Hitherto, 

 the world belonged to the Food-seeker, the Self- 

 seeker, the Struggler for Life, the Father. 

 Now is the hour of the Mother. And, animal 

 though she be, she rises to her task. And that 

 hour, as she ministers to her young, becomes to 

 the world the hour of its holiest birth. 



Sympathy, tenderness, unselfishness, and the 

 long list of virtues which make up Altruism, are 

 the direct outcome and essential accompaniment 

 of the reproductive process. Without some rudi- 

 mentary maternal solicitude for the ^g<g in the 



