DIFFERENCE AND DISORDER. 135 



mischief it does, whether temporarily or permanently, bears 

 relation both to its duration and intensity. Maternal affec- 

 tion even is sometimes violent in its intensity, but as limited 

 in duration as it is intense in degree. In other words, its 

 duration is in proportion to its intensity (White). 



Given a result and a variety of possible or probable causes, 

 it is frequently difficult, if not impossible, to determine 

 which of these causes is influential, or the most influential. 

 The hamster, for instance, devours its own young, not from 

 need of food, but, as it has been ingeniously suggested by 

 Pierquin, perhaps from want of milk. In other words, he 

 suggests the possibility that the apparently morbid appetite 

 may be really due to an exuberance of maternal love and 

 caution, and not to its coldness or absence. The idea, how- 

 ever, does more credit probably to the heart than the head 

 of the ingenious apologist. It is, at least, a fair sample of 

 the allegation or assumption of possible causes or motives 

 by comparative psychologists in the attempted explanation 

 of puzzling phenomena. The anger roused in the couxio 

 (monkey) by artificially wetting its beard may or may not 

 depend upon its love of personal cleanliness, dryness, or 

 tidiness. 



The multiplicity of causes in operation in a given result 

 may be illustrated by a great variety of familiar incidents. 

 Thus the fierce fighting which leads to the death of so many 

 animals in rut is due to a combination of the separately 

 powerful influences of sexual love, rivalry, and jealousy. 



The fear of the Ohillinghain bull by the horse, as de- 

 scribed by Aylmer, may arise 



1. Merely from the unusualness of the spectacle. 



2. The glowering of the equally startled and frightful- 

 looking bull ; or it may be 



3. A hereditarily transmitted dread of this class of bulls 

 in particular, or of bulls in general. 



Again, the horse shows alarm at the presence or approach 

 of a leopard, but it does not appear whether sight or smell 

 is the medium through which the feeling of dread arises. 

 A cat being frightened by a peacock, a sort of terror-mania 

 was the result, involving utter loss of self-possession, fol- 



