86 The Morality of Nature 



This prolific race, still equipped by nature with powers of 

 rapid reproduction, opposes to such an attack not only its 

 output of offspring, but the higher equipment and education 

 of offspring; and the attack itself has the effect of selection. 

 Those who survive and escape once are those most able to 

 survive and escape again. And the offspring of these who 

 find the way of escape, become the parents of young to 

 whom they transmit some of their ability. Then the shyness, 

 the timidity of such creatures, in which they scamper to cover 

 upon the sight of enemies, which was not original or neces- 

 sary with them, becomes instinctive even from birth; it is 

 the instinct of a strain or kin, which has been selected by the 

 hunting in which all but the shy were killed. 



And selection can develop the very opposite qualities in 

 the same class of animals. For example, the squirrels and 

 birds in the public parks of a kindly people, survive in greater 

 numbers than the natural food would support, because they 

 are fed by human friends, and so creatures of a wild race, 

 which in the forests of the same country a few miles distant, 

 has developed a strain of its most shy members, as the fittest 

 for conditions there ; has produced here a group so selected 

 for confidence, that they will walk fearlessly up to a man and 

 beg for favors. Here the shy do not prosper nor get suf- 

 ficient food, the tame ones thrive because their life is the 

 most fit, while the timid starve. Now we recognize that the 

 development of either or both of these opposite qualities in 

 full degree of usefulness to the race is accomplished by the 

 way of death — and in this function death acts with justice. 

 It is not usually possible to take a mature, shy wild animal, 

 who has lived by fear and tame him even by kindness. There 



