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 494 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

is, where mercenary motives do not intervene, a man joins him- self to a woman in marriage for the woman's sake, and for that only : it is his passion for her that prompts him ; if he makes any calculations, it is to possess her, live with her, and be happy with her ; his motives are most decidedly egoistic, or, if there are any altruistic motives, they do not extend beyond the woman he has selected ; the preservation of the race he does not think of, or, at the most, he thinks of it as incidental, not as an essential motive determining him to unite himself to that or any other female. And as much, of course, may be said of the woman. They may, no doubt, in some cases desire to have offspring; they may be greatly disappointed if they have it not; but the having of offspring is not the end of their union ; nor would they think of uniting themselves in the absence of those mutually attractive feelings known as love. In the present state of society there seems, then, no warrant for speaking of a rationalized instinct of reproduction, in the sense that we speak of a rational- ized instinct of self-preservation ; and we may say that, while self-preservation is a spring of action, reproduction is not.

With respect to the preservation or rearing of offspring, it must be admitted that of this we may with propriety say that, in the case of man, it is a rationalized instinct. For, leav- ing out some abnormal exceptions, it is a general fact that all actions performed by parents for the benefit of their offspring are purposely performed by man, with a perfect knowledge of their effects, and a decided intention to achieve those effects. We nurse our children, clothe them, look after their health and comfort, educate them, and often make sacrifices for them, merely for their sake, and because their well-being and their progress in life are by themselves sources of very intense pleasures to us. As with the instinct of self-preservation, which, by becoming intelligent, has become conscious of its object and is guided by its object, so with the instinct of offspring-preservation : its object is represented in consciousness, and acts as a very power- ful stimulus. And, inasmuch as upon this instinct the perpetua- tion of the race depends, we might perhaps call it a race-preserving instinct, were it not for the danger of extending the expression