152 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



unknown. A very slight acquaintance with the his- 

 tory of mankind shows that benevolence is not one 

 of the primitive virtues at all. It appears very late 

 in the history of human progress. Even there its 

 survival and maintenance is always threatened by any 

 rude disturbance of the delicate machinery of daily 

 well-being. It survives and is brought into prominence 

 after temporary calamities. A sudden catastrophe, 

 like the West Indian hurricane, for example, stimulates 

 the sentiment. But in long and enduring suffering, 

 the incidence of which is general, it is matter of 

 common knowledge that the impulse of good-will 

 tends to disappear. This tendency is among the first 

 and more deplorable symptoms caused by any violent 

 collapse of the organised well-being of society. 



The instances in which this demoralisation has been 

 kept at bay, and which national pride dwells upon 

 most fondly, are in nearly every case evidence that the 

 sentiment is strongest where it exists both by inherit- 

 ance and training. The unselfish devotion to others 

 shown by the beleaguered garrisons in the Mutiny, 

 was strengthened and supported by the fact that the 

 greater number of adult non-combatants were English 

 ladies, and that among the men the proportion of 

 those belonging to a class whose standard of moral 

 obligation is a high one was unusually large. 



This is not the place to analyse the motives which 

 prompt and maintain such magnificent devotion. But 

 it is certain that few or none of the inducements are 

 other than complex and slowly acquired notions of 

 honour, duty, self-respect, religion, or patriotism, which 



