CHAP, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 173 



In the lower forms of life, and in some which are 

 pretty high, fecundity is almost inconceivably great. 

 But the superior method is that of quality. Fewer of 

 the offspring perish at an immature stage, for they 

 are better guarded and better developed either before 

 birth or while still under parental care. The methods 

 are alternatives. As quality rises, quantity recedes. 

 As care for offspring increases, the number of off- 

 spring steadily diminishes ; 1 but every species pretty 

 well holds its own on a net balance. One important 

 side development of the method of quality is the 

 method of the egg, the nest, and the incubating 

 parent; but the crowning method is that of infant 

 helplessness and maternal or parental self-sacrifice, 

 best exemplified in human kind. 



We see therefore that the higher races are evolved 

 on a principle of family life and family affection. 

 But in this close intercourse of the home or the nest 

 sympathy is born, and sympathy naturally extends 

 itself to other members of the species. Here then 

 we are on the very brink of morality itself. Indeed, 

 we might say that the secret of the evolution of 

 morals is placed by Mr. Sutherland just here. Na- 

 ture, in the case of the higher tribes, required for 

 survival that there should be a strong " perihestic " 

 sympathy, and this sympathy could not be hindered 

 from overflowing into " aphestic " 2 relations. Moral- 



1 Does this not point to a variation which is not random ? Are we 

 really to suppose that, in the beginning, animal races produced families 

 of all sizes, indiscriminately, and tended them with all possible degrees 

 of care, until those with unsuitable proportions died off ? 



2 Mr. Sutherland's terms, coined by him for human morals, where 

 no doubt they are more fully legitimate. 



