BENEVOLENCE IN MAN AND BEAST 153 



are utterly beyond the limits of the animal mind in 

 Nature, except perhaps that of duty, which is only 

 learnt in relation to man by at most one or two 

 animals. 



Without multiplying instances of the acquired 

 character of the benevolent impulse in man, it is 

 worth remembering that even civilised races relapse 

 with astonishing pertinacity to the non-benevolent 

 state ; and that in cultured Athens the horrible 

 human sacrifices with which the story of ancient 

 Greece is replete survived as a national institution, and 

 that every year a man and a woman were whipped 

 through the streets and then burnt alive to satisfy 

 some such impulse as prompts similar acts among the 

 Congo negroes. At the present moment, the absence 

 of benevolence in any form among the non-developed 

 races of to-day needs no better illustration than the 

 fact, recorded by Captain Hinde, that on the Upper 

 Congo no negro lives beyond forty ; that being the 

 age at which their fellow-men directly or indirectly 

 cause their death. 



If analogy demands the exercise of benevolence by 

 one animal towards another, it is not quite clear in 

 what sphere this sentiment is to find its realisation. 

 It is clear that we cannot expect it from all animals 

 to all other animals, for the carnivorous creatures 

 naturally act "after their kind." Probably those 

 who would at any rate desire to see this trait would 

 expect to see either a general tendency to mutual 

 aid and comfort among the non-carnivorous warm- 

 blooded creatures, or at least a desire to perform such 



