26 The Morality of Nature 



sense could be looked for, so that this simpler explanation 

 forces itself. It is evidently to be ascribed to a respect for 

 the will and power of the other one, which is implanted in 

 the mentality of any individual who has been subjected to 

 repeated experiences proving that power. Observation 

 shows that such respect is acquired by the education and 

 memory of circumstances, when instinct does not provide 

 it; and when instinctive, it is simply the same education 

 transmitted by heredity from parents who learned it earlier. 



Responsibility for an act is therefore seen to include a 

 liability not only for those consequences which it produces 

 as desired in passive nature, but also answerability to other 

 creatures who may resent the act, or on the other hand may 

 be delighted by it. But the simple statement of the prob- 

 lem, with only one or a few of other creatures involved, is 

 almost as theoretical as the idea of passive nature with no 

 fellows present. For in real life countless thousands of 

 creatures, of necessity participate in the consequences of 

 any act; and according to their various capacities they all, 

 from the microbe to the man, do their little or large share 

 in opposing or accelerating it. 



A consideration of this joint interest of an unknown num- 

 ber of all creation in the act of one member is revealed by 

 the attitude of very simple creatures. The worm which 

 hides in a hole in the ground does so, not only to avoid the 

 sunshine, but to evade the hunter bird; for him to emerge 

 at inopportune time is dangerous and he knows it, and in 

 his method of life he takes account of birds, and of their 

 comings and goings, because a disregard for them would be 

 disastrous. And he does this with a fair degree of success 



