230 MOKAL CAUSES OF 



part of many other animals. So total sometimes is the 

 absorption of interest and attention, in such animals as the 

 cow, bitch, mare, pigeon, by the maternal passion, that the 

 said passion has been described by Pierquin and Esquirol as 

 amounting to a monomania of love. 



Undue development of the maternal instinct, however, 

 excessive motherly affection, sometimes proves dangerous or 

 fatal to the young from the recklessness or stupidity of the 

 mother's actions, or from morbid appetites or impulses arising 

 in her. 



Sexual love, again, may, and frequently does, become 

 passionate in its intensity, and amounts to a well-marked 

 eroticism, whether in other animals or in man. The dog is 

 said to be ' warm-hearted ' to a degree that in man, or rather 

 in woman, would be called * gushing ' or effusive : there is in 

 it an exuberance or extravagance of love or affection. The 

 same animal is often said to be ' overjoyed,' to be f mad with 

 joy ' or c in an ectasy of delight ' at the mere anticipation of 

 some simple pleasure, such as a walk with its master. It is 

 capable also of profundity of sorrow, and in many other 

 ways it shows a capacity for excess of feeling. 



Various writers speak of c tumults ' or c raptures ' of joy, 

 fear, surprise, or satisfaction in the lower animals. We read 

 of the ' fervency ' or c exuberance ' of their emotions. Dar- 

 win speaks of the ( agony of passion ' in birds. Now all 

 such excess merely requires duration or intensity, or a com- 

 bination of the two, to pass into a more or less permanent 

 and serious morbid mental state. The vehemence or violence 

 of the passions is frequently such that they get beyond con- 

 trol equally of will and judgment, and then become morbid 

 and dangerous ; for instance, jealousy in the monkey or dog; 

 rage or fury in the tiger or jackal ; sexual love in the stag 

 (Pierquin). Passion conquers reason, permanently or for the 

 time being. 



But this is far from being a peculiarity of the lower 

 animals (Pope) ; the same thing constantly occurs not only 

 in children, idiots, insane persons, epileptics, and the deaf 

 and dumb, but even among those of the most highly cul- 

 tured of the most highly civilised nations, who pride them- 



