s,
therefore, no struggle as between mother and progeny; but, on the
contrary, the closest possible alliance. Otherwise, life would be
impossible. The young being defenceless, their parents could
exterminate them if they pleased, and by so doing would exterminate the
race. The parental relation, of course, constantly involves a partial
sacrifice of the mother to her young. She has to go through a whole
series of operations, which strain her own strength and endanger her
own existence, but which are absolutely essential to the continuance of
the race. It may be anthropomorphic to attribute any maternal emotions
of the human kind to the animal. The bird, perhaps, sits upon her eggs
because they give her an agreeable sensation, or, if you please, from a
blind instinct which somehow determines her to the practice. She does
not look forward, we may suppose, to bringing up a family, or speculate
upon the delights of domestic affection. I only say that as a fact she
behaves in a way which is at once injurious to her own chances of
individual survival, and absolutely necessary to the survival of the
species. The abnormal bird who deserts her nest escapes many dangers;
but if all birds were devoid of the instinct, the birds would not
survive a generation.

Now, I ask, what is the difference which takes place when the monkey
gradually loses his tail and sets up a superior brain? Is it properly
to be described as a development or improvement of the "cosmic
process," or as the beginning of a prolonged contest against it?

In the first place, so far as man becomes a reasonable being, capable
of foresight and of the adoption of means to ends, he recognises the
nature of these tacit alliances. He believes it to be his interest not
to exterminate everything, but to exterminate those species alone whose
existence is incompatible with his own. The wolf eats every sheep that
he comes across as long as his appetite lasts. If there are too many
wolves, the process is checked by the starvation of the supernumerary
eaters. Man can maintain just as many sheep as he wants, and may also
proportion the numbers of his own species to the possibilities of
future supply. Many of the lower species thus become subordinate parts
of the social organism--that is to say, of the new equilibrium which
has been established. There is so far a reciprocal advantage. The sheep
that is preserved with a view to mutton gets the advantage, though he
is not kept wit