THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



freely as the birds do were it not for certain very 

 imperative restrictions imposed by that new and in a 

 sense unnatural state of things which we term civiliza- 

 tion. The existence of these limitations, however, de- 

 mands the exercise of something more than avian fore- 

 sight and caution. 



The development of the restrictions in question has 

 its origin, in the last analysis, in a single all-important 

 fact of the natural history of man; the fact, namely, 

 that the human offspring requires about a score of years 

 to attain the growth that will render it independent of 

 parental care. 



The importance of that salient fact in shaping the 

 growth of civilization could by no possibility be over- 

 estimated. It is the primal fact among those natural 

 endowments that have given permanency and stability 

 to human society. It is perhaps foremost among the 

 foundations of the kind of morality and virtue without 

 which civilization could not have progressed to its 

 present status. 



Consider, for example, its influence on the question 

 in hand. Our hypothetical birds, mating in the spring, 

 soon have a nest of fledglings that will require their 

 joint attention for five or six weeks at most; after 

 which they may go their several ways. Under such 

 circumstances it does not so very greatly matter whether 

 the mates were well and wisely chosen ; for half a dozen 

 weeks do not make up a preponderant period of time 

 even in the life of a bird. But our callow human youth, 

 mating under stress of their primitive instinct, are 



