CONTENTS OF CHAPTER III
INSECT PARENTHOOD
The necessity of beginning the investigation of motherhood before human parenthood—The instinct not fixed but dependent on circumstances and the conditions of life—Experiments in family life—Bewildering diversity in strength of parental instinct—Numerous cases of insect home makers—Domestic economy of bees and ants—Does the word “instinct” explain—Parental devotion of the scarabee beetles—Fabre’s account—Important to note (1) connection between form of union or marriage of the sexes and parental devotion, (2) connection between degree of intelligence in the parent and amount of care devoted to the young.
CHAPTER III
INSECT PARENTHOOD
“There can be few people alive who have not remarked on occasion that men are the creatures of circumstances. But it is one thing to state a belief of this sort in some incidental application, and quite another to realise it completely.”—H. G. Wells.
This statement of Mr. Wells that I have placed at the head of the chapter will explain the reason why I find it necessary to go back to the grey primeval dawn of life to start my inquiry into motherhood. I want to establish that the instinct of caring for the young is not fixed, that it does not always develop in the same way or in the same parent, but rather that it is a quality, fluid and of indeterminate possibilities, that can be set and shaped by the conditions of life as wax is shaped by a mould. And I know no other way to make this clear. The few scattered facts that I have been able to gather together tell the miracles of the parental instinct. They must, I think, teach us humility. Let us throw aside the garments of conceit and false learning, and recognise that in reality we know almost nothing about anything, if things are probed to the bottom.