THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 145 



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 rela- 

 tions 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 Forficula, or earwigs. 

 y The all-important emotion of sympathy is distinct from 

 that of love. A mother may passionately love her sleeping 

 and passive infant, but she can hardly at such times be said 

 to feel sympathy for it. The love of a man for his dog is 

 distinct from sympathy, and so is that of a dog for his mas- 

 ter. Adam Smith formerly argued, as has Mr. Bain re- 

 cently, that the basis of sympathy lies in our strong reten- 

 tiveness of former states of pain or pleasure. Hence, "the 

 eight of another person enduring hunger, cold, fatigue, re- 

 vives in us some recollection of these states, which are pain- 

 ful even in idea." We are thus impelled to relieve the 

 sufferings of another, in order that our own painful feelings 

 may be at the same time relieved. In like manner we are 

 led to participate in the pleasures of others." But I cannot 



" See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral 

 Sentiments." Also Mr. Bain's "Mental and Moral Science," 1868, pp. 244 and 

 275-282. Mr. Bain states, that "sympathy is, indirectly, a source of pleasure 

 to the sympathizer"; and he accounts for this through reciprocity. He re- 

 marks that "the person benefited, or others in his stead, may make up, by 

 sympathy and good offices returned, for all the sacrifice." But if, as appears 

 to 1)e the case, sympathy is strictly an instinct, its exercise would give direct 

 pleasure, in the same manner as labe exercise, as before remarked, of ahnoBt 

 every other instinct. 

 Descentf— Vol. L—'I 



