160 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



of pity and disgust are constantly at war. Pity is 

 generally prior, but, except in the highest natures, 

 it weakens with time. ' Pity/ says Cobbett, ' is not 

 a lasting emotion/ and instead of pity passing into 

 love, it often turns to disgust, and disgust to dis- 

 like, after a long contemplation of disease and 

 deformity. The ruder the state of society, the 

 harsher becomes the law, for we may assume that 

 the dislike of the weak and sickly by the healthy 

 and vigorous, is an indirect and unpleasing form 

 of the working of natural selection. Maternal affec- 

 tion must, of course, be exempted from this general 

 tendency. So long as any young creatures are 

 dependent upon their parents, the tendency of the 

 old is to give most to the young who need most. 

 The devotion of the bird or animal varies with the 

 helplessness of the offspring. 



But we must look further and consider the 

 relations of the non-related, the conduct of the 

 society to the individual, and of the different 

 species to each other. In doing so, we find some- 

 thing parallel to our own development, for 

 domestication, the animal equivalent to civilisa- 

 tion, does produce a tendency towards the emotions 

 of pity and benevolence. But in animal communi- 

 ties, there seems to exist little sense of pity when 

 the weakness of a member inconveniences or en- 



