But as
soon as her young ones are able to take care of themselves, they are
nothing to her--among the lower animals, less than nothing. The
fish or the crocodile will take care of her eggs jealously, and as
soon as they are hatched, turn round and devour her own young.
The feeling of a FATHER to his child, again, you find is fainter
still among beasts. The father, as you all know, not only cares
little for his offspring, even if he sometimes helps to feed them at
first, but is often jealous of them, hates them, will try to kill
them when they grow up.
Husband and wife, again: there is no sacredness between them among
dumb animals. A lasting and an unselfish attachment, not merely in
youth, but through old age and beyond the grave--what is there like
this among the animals, except in the case of certain birds, like
the dove and the eagle, who keep the same mate year after year, and
have been always looked on with a sort of affection and respect by
men for that very reason?
But where, among beasts, do you ever find any trace of those two
sacred human feelings--the love of brother to brother, or of child
to father? Where do you find the notion that the tie between
husband and wife is a sacred thing, to be broken at no temptation,
but in man?
These are THE feelings which man has alone of all living animals.
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