102 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



have felt any joy in doing so. Some instincts are determinecf 

 solely by painful feelings, as by fear, which leads to self-preserva- 

 tion, and is in some cases directed towards special enemies. No 

 one, I presume, can analyze the sensations of pleasure or pain. 

 In many instances, however, it is probable that instincts are per- 

 sistently followed from the mere force of inheritance, without the 

 stimulus of either pleasure or pain. A young pointer, when it 

 first scents game, apparently cannot help pointing. A squirrel 

 in a cage who pats the nuts which it cannot eat, as if to bury them 

 in the ground, can hardly be thought to act thus, either from 

 pleasure or pain. Hence the common assumption that men must 

 be impelled to every action by experiencing some pleasure or pain 

 may be erroneous. Although a habit may be blindly and im- 

 plicitly followed, independently of any pleasure or pain felt at the 

 moment, yet if it be forcibly and abruptly checked, a vague sense 

 of dissatisfaction is generally experienced. 



It has often been assumed that animals were in the first place 

 rendered social, and that they feel as a consequence uncomfortable 

 when separated from each other, and comfortable whilst together; 

 but it is a more probable view that these sensations were first 

 developed, in order that those animals which would profit by liv- 

 ing in society, should be induced to live together, in the same 

 manner as the sense of hunger and the pleasure of eating were, 

 no doubt, first acquired in order to induce animals to eat. The 

 feeling of pleasure from society is probably an extension of the 

 parental or filial affections, since the social instinct seems to be 

 developed by the young remaining for a long time with their 

 parents; and this extension may be attributed in part to habit, 

 but chiefly to natural selection. With those animals which were 

 benefited by living in close association, the individuals which 

 took the greatest pleasure in society would best escape various 

 dangers; whilst those that cared least for their comrades, and 

 lived solitary, would perish in greater numbers. With respect to 

 the origin of the parental and filial affections, which apparently 

 lie at the base of the social instincts, we know not the steps by 

 which they have been gained; but we may infer that it has been 

 to a large extent through natural selection. So it has almost 

 certainly been with the unusual and opposite feeling of hatred 

 between the nearest relations, as with the worker-bees which kill 

 their brother-drones, and with the queen-bees which kill their 

 daughter-queens; the desire to destroy their nearest relations 

 having been in this case of service to the community. Parental 

 affection, or some feeling which replaces it, has been developed 

 in certain animals extremely low in the scale, for example, in 

 star-fishes and spiders. It is also occasionally present in a few 

 members alone in a whole group of animals, as in the genus For- 

 ficula, or earwigs. 



