The Evolution of Parental Care 47 



tenderness for them that is little' short of that shown 

 by human beings. In the Descent of Man, Dar- 

 win relates that "Rengger observed an American 

 monkey (a Cebus) carefully driving the flies which 

 plagued her infant; and Duvancel saw a Hylobates 

 washing the faces of her young ones in a stream. 

 So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the 

 loss of their young, that it invariably caused the 

 death of certain kinds kept under confinement by 

 Brehm in North Africa. Orphan monkeys were al- 

 ways adopted and carefully guarded by other mon- 

 keys, both male and female." 



It is a far cry from the egg-protecting instincts 

 of primitive animals to the love of a human mother 

 for her children. But the animal kingdom presents 

 us with many of the intervening stages of evolution. 

 The most primitive instinct and the most developed 

 affection work toward the same end, — the perpetua- 

 tion of the race. Both are parts of the life process 

 which is everywhere occupied with the business of 

 its own maintenance. 



The two phases of this process represented by self- 

 preservation and race preservation have become elab- 

 orated pari passu in the course of evolution. If our 

 preceding account is correct, parental care and all the 

 social and ethical instincts to which it forms the pre- 

 paratory stage of development may be regarded as 

 an outgrowth of the process of reproduction. To 

 the simple acts of egg laying there came to be added 

 other activities which make for the welfare of 



