CHAPTER XIX. 



Psychological and Ethical Aspects. 



§ I. Co7Jimon Ground between Afii7?ials and Me7i. — Hitherto 

 we have been justifying the orthodoxy of an anatomical training, 

 by almost wholly ignoring the fact that animals have a psychic 

 life, or only mentioning the mere neural aspect of functions. 

 Only in discussing sexual selection, and the general facts of 

 sexual union and of parentage, have we intruded words like 

 " care," " sacrifice," and " love." A purely physiological treat- 

 ment of sex and reproduction is, however, obviously incom- 

 plete. It would be rejected with scorn in reference to human 

 life; it must be equally rejected in regard to the higher 

 animals, which, taken together, exhibit the analogues of almost 

 every human emotion, and of all our less recondite intellectual 

 processes. It is with emotions that we have here most to do ; 

 and without raising the difficult question whether animals 

 exhibit any emotions exactly analogous to those which in man 

 are associated with the " moral sense," " religion," and " the sub- 

 lime," we accept the conclusion of Darwin, followed by Romanes 

 and others, that all other emotions which we ourselves experience, 

 are likewise recognisable in less perfect, or sometimes more 

 perfect, expression in the higher animals. Those which are 

 associated with sex and reproduction are indeed among the 

 most patent; love of mates, love of offspring, lust, jealousy, 

 family affection, social sympathies, are undeniable. 



§ 2. The Love of Mates. — In the lowest animals, where two 

 exhausted cells flow together in incipient sexual union, there is 

 apparently only one component of that most complex musical 

 chord in life which we call " love." There is physical attraction, 

 and the whole process is very much a satisfaction of proto- 

 plasmic hunger. 



In multicellular animals, the liberation of sex-elements is at 

 first very passive. It concerns the individual alone. Fertilisa- 

 tion is a random matter; and though sex exists, sexual attraction 

 does not. 



