But it is evidently
self-centred. The animal may have forgotten the claims of his dead
ancestors, he is certainly fully alive to his own interests. Can he
even partially rise superior to prudential considerations, as he has
to some extent to the claims of appetite? Is it possible to develop
the unselfish out of the purely selfish? And if so, how is this to
be accomplished? It is not accomplished in the animal; it is but
very incompletely accomplished in man. It will be accomplished one
day.
In action, at least, the animal is not purely selfish. As Mr.
Drummond has shown, reproduction, that old function and first to
gain an organ, is not primarily for the benefit of self, but for the
species. And not only the storing up of material in the egg, but
care for the young after birth, is found in some fish and insects,
and increases from fish upward. I readily grant you that this in its
beginnings may be purely instinctive, and that not a particle of
genuine affection for the young may as yet be present in the mind of
the parent. But beneficial habits may, under the fostering care of
selection, develop into instincts. The animal may at first be
unconscious of these, and yet they may grow continually stronger.
But one day the animal awakens to its actions, and from that time on
what had been done blindly and unconsciously is continued
consciously, intelligently, and from set purpose.
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