Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/561

Rh animals and in man. The most elementary form of love is that of the mother toward the child, and it is a direct development from self-love. The cat-mother who defends her kitten with her life, later shows toward it an increasingly unfriendly attitude. With decreasing dependence of the young life there is a diminution of parental love. Among gregarious animals that find an advantage in living in groups, the affectionate relation lasts much longer, but the change finally comes.

Here the sources of love lie open before us. Parental love is an elementary phenomenon, resulting in the passing of the instinct of self-preservation from the individual to the species. From the same source arises sexual love and also the bond between members of a family, which makes each ready for a measure of self-sacrifice for the protection of the others. From the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the race, from the race to mankind, the same process extends and develops, and this development is equipollent to and largely identical with the growth of ethics.

The energetic imperative enters again here. If we ask why a family or a group of animals or, specially, of men, hang together, the answer is that it is to their mutual advantage, because it brings in numerous ways an economy of energy in the securing of shelter, food and defense. As soon as the group is formed, the conduct of each member must adapt itself to the requirements of the group. Those whose behavior is most beneficial to the group are highly esteemed and their demeanor becomes a pattern for others. Those who have not modified their individualistic instincts to harmonize with the standards of the group are treated worse or may even be punished or turned adrift. Often one member of pronounced individualistic instincts appears, who combines therewith great abilities and personal force. He may subordinate the others and compel them to serve his personal interests. The condition thus created, if it continues long enough, gives rise to an ethics in which obedience to the ruler appears as the greatest virtue, and opposition to his will as the most heinous offense. Out of this condition, according to our author, grows the type of morals presented by the higher religions and summed up in the injunction, love God above all and thy neighbor as thy self. This is the moral system of an oppressed folk, who give to Cæsar what is Cæsar's and who contrast their joyless lives on earth with the higher existence hoped for early in the future, for which they seek to prepare by the exercise of love toward those who are to be their fellows for all eternity. Ostwald lays stress upon the point that the foundation of this morality has been shaken by the fact that the kingdom of Heaven, expected so soon, has not as yet put in an appearance.

The demands of the present will, however, not be denied, and under their pressure a new, unacknowledged morality has arisen, containing the living elements of the old, adapted to the changed environment of to-day.