A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

by Cora May Williams

But mutual aid among the animals is not confined to the relations of parents and offspring, and male and female. Whether or not we explain the societies of animals as merely huge families, as some authors are inclined to do, the fact of the association remains, and it continues to be true that, in this association, much mutual assistance is given. In this connection, however, may be cited the experiments of Lubbock, showing the exceeding irregularity and apparent caprice with which such assistance is rendered among even such creatures as the ants, with whom organization is generally regarded as having arrived at an unusual degree of development. Lubbock found that, wherever a regular battle was in progress, the ants gave aid to each other, but that where a single ant was attacked by an enemy, the others of the nest generally took no part in the matter. In many cases, they passed by wounded or helpless members of their own colony, leaving them to perish where a very small amount of help would have saved them. In some cases, they cared for the slightly wounded; but those who were severely wounded they threw from the nest. In their hostility to their enemies, they were merciless and more persistent than in their help of friends.[142] Lubbock, arguing from such facts as these, differs in opinion from Grote, who regards it as necessary to the maintenance of any society that some moral feeling should exist. Indeed, that which Carneri asserts with regard to the care of offspring might be claimed in this case, namely, that the assistance reaches exactly so far as is necessary for the preservation of species. The implication is that all this apparent altruism is mere automatism.

In support of a view similar to this, Benno Scheitz quotes the following case,[143] "which Dr. Altum relates from his own experience": "'In the Gens d'Armes Market in Berlin, I saw several larks and a robin in a cage; the former cowered sorrowfully, with somewhat roughened feathers, in a corner, but the robin was in full activity. It ran to the food-cup, seized as many ant-larvæ as it could grasp in its bill, and hastened with these to the nearest lark. The latter, however, did not honor the solicitous robin and its food with as much as a look. But scarcely had the robin offered its disdained food than it let this fall and hastened after fresh food, offered this, let it fall, fetched fresh again,—only to begin the same performance anew. As long as I watched this interesting spectacle, the robin was thus employed, and very soon the greater portion of the ant-larvæ had been carried from the food-vessel and lay scattered before the different larks. And what was here the motive of the redbreast in permitting itself no nourishment (I did not see that it ate a single one of the ant-larvæ itself), but carrying it all to its fellow-prisoners,—sympathy and love for the larks, who disdained all food, and who could have taken the same food for themselves, in the same manner, and with exactly the same amount of trouble? The redbreast had been caught and carried away from its young; the impulse to feed was strongly awakened and had before been strongly active, but not satisfied; the bird was obliged, therefore, to continue to bring food, although there was no longer anything to feed.'" The care which female animals of many species, when deprived of their young, often show for the young of other animals of the same or other species that come in their way is well known. Among domestic animals, the cat appears particularly susceptible in this respect, though comparisons here are perhaps scarcely fair, since, of all domestic animals that are habitually deprived of their young, the cat is about the only one that has the chance of coming in contact with young animals near the size of its own kind. The cat has been known to adopt young rats, chickens, puppies, ducks, and will generally, during the time of suckling, take up readily with kittens of another litter. Galton, in his "Inquiry into Human Faculty," mentions that the records of many nations have legends like that of Romulus and Remus, these being surprisingly confirmed by General Sleeman's narrative of six cases where children were nurtured for many years by wolves, in Oude. The working ants of certain species show as great care for the slave-larvæ robbed from other nests as do many parent animals for their own offspring. Again, the care for their eggs shown by many animals who give no care to their young may be cited as evidence in favor of the theory of automatism. In the vegetable world also, similar protection is afforded flower and fruit, the most wonderful instances of such protection being, perhaps, those of the insectivorous plants.

But to all these arguments in favor of automatism may be answered: (1) that functions which are preserved and inherited must evidently be, not only in animals and plants, but also and equally in man, such as favor the preservation of the species; those which do not so favor it must perish with the individuals or species to which they belong; (2) that it cannot, indeed, be assumed that a result which has never come within the experience of the species can be willed as an end, although, with the species, function securing results which, from a human point of view, might be regarded as ends, may be preserved; but (3) that, as far as we assume the existence of consciousness at all in any species or individual, we must assume pleasure and pain, pleasure in customary function, pain in its hindrance; and (4) that, as far as we can assume memory, we may also feel authorized to assume that a remembered action may be associated with remembered results that come within the experience of the animal, some phases of which may thus become, as combined with pleasure or pain, ends to seek or consequences to avoid. There is no reason to be given why care for the young should be more pleasurable than care for eggs; the one may be as pleasurable to some species as the other is to other species. If we assume consciousness in Dr. Altum's robin, we may assume pleasure in the care of its young and also, as a possibility, pleasure in the results of such care, the preservation and prosperity of the young; whether the consciousness of the robin includes abstract concepts of preservation and prosperity, is another question. The human mother, too, is wont to be peculiarly tender to children in general, but we do not for that reason infer that her kindness towards them is mere automatism. There is no necessary opposition between reason and instinct, and certainly none between emotion and instinct. To the very functions from which we derive the most pleasure we are impelled by an irresistible innate tendency. In any particular case, it may be very difficult to determine the amount of reasoning power possessed by the animal, the exact relation of ends to means in its consciousness; but it may be remarked that there are human mothers who reason little with regard to the preservation of the species or other so-called ends secured by the care they give their offspring; the care is spontaneous, but may not be the less a matter of warm affection. It appears strange, therefore, that exactly that constancy and strength of tendency, with need of satisfaction by other channels if the usual ones fail, which we use as proof of extreme mother-tenderness in the case of human beings should, in the case of other species, be turned into an argument to disprove the existence of this feeling.

It is sometimes argued that the feeling of the parent animal in the care of its young is, in any case, merely one of pleasure in the activity, and has no connection with the good of the offspring. In such a case as that of the robin, where the effects of the care come within the experience of the mother, this is a mere arbitrary assumption, although direct proof of the contrary may be impossible. Naturally, in the case of an animal which cares for its eggs, but never comes in contact with the offspring that are hatched from them, it would be impossible to suppose any affection for the offspring as such; their existence does not come within the range of the animal's experience. With regard to an animal whose connection with its young is constant, the theory that pleasure in their care has no reference to their welfare, has no evidence to support it and is unjustifiable. If we cannot directly disprove it, we have, at least, the evidence of many facts unfavorable to it. The distress manifested not only by many mammals (who might be supposed to find physical discomfort merely in the absence of the means of relief of the milk-glands), but also by other animals and notably birds, in the loss of their young and even in any danger that threatens them,—the indescribably mournful sounds at deprivation, the after depression, and the capacity for self-sacrifice in their defence, would lead us naturally, from an unprejudiced standpoint, to a belief in something very like what we term mother-love in human beings. From Letourneau's "Sociology based upon Ethnography,"[144] I quote the following: "A female wren, observed by Montagu, spent sixteen hours a day in looking for food for her little ones. At Delft, when there was a fire raging, a female white stork, not being able to carry away her young ones, allowed herself to be burnt with them.... J. J. Hayes tells us of a female white bear forgetting the Esquimaux dogs, the huntsmen, and her own wounds, in order to hide her own little bear with her body, to lick her and to protect her. In Central Africa, a female elephant, all covered and pierced with javelins, hurled at her by the escort of black men attending upon Livingstone, was all the while protecting her young one with her trunk which her own large body enabled her to cover.... In Sumatra, a female orang-outang, pursued with her little one by Captain Hall and wounded by a gunshot, threw her infant on to the highest branches of the tree on to which she had climbed, and continued, until she died, exhorting her young one to escape. In Brazil, Sphix saw a female of the stentor niger who, wounded by a gunshot, collected her last remaining strength to throw her young one on to one of the branches close by; when she had performed this last act of duty, she fell from the tree and died." In Romanes' "Animal Intelligence," occurs the following quotation from Dr. Franklin:[145] "'I have known two parrots,' said he, 'which had lived together four years, when the female became weak and her legs swelled. These were symptoms of gout, a disease to which all birds of this family are very subject in England. It became impossible for her to descend from the perch, or to take her food as formerly, but the male was most assiduous in carrying it to her in his beak. He continued feeding her in this manner during four months, but the infirmities of his companion increased from day to day, so that at last she was unable to support herself on the perch. She remained at the bottom of the cage, making, from time to time, ineffectual efforts to regain the perch. The male was always near her, and with all his strength aided the attempts of his dear better half. Seizing the poor invalid by the beak or the upper part of the wing, he tried to raise her, and renewed his efforts several times. His constancy, his gestures, and his continued solicitude, all showed in this affectionate bird the most ardent desire to relieve the sufferings and assist the weakness of his companion. But the scene became still more interesting when the female was dying. Her unhappy spouse moved around her incessantly, his attention and tender cares redoubled. He even tried to open her beak to give her some nourishment. He ran to her, then returned with a troubled and agitated look. At intervals, he uttered the most plaintive cries; then, with his eyes fixed on her, kept a mournful silence. At length his companion breathed her last; from that moment he pined away, and died in the course of a few weeks.'"

Moreover, care of animals for other animals shows itself often where neither the relation of parent to offspring, nor the relation of sex, nor even that of species, furnishes the basis. Aside from the friendship and self-sacrifice of domestic animals for man, friendships, under domestication, between individuals of all manner of ordinarily most hostile species are reported. Such friendship is not at all infrequent between dog and cat. In the family of a relative of my own were once a quail and cat who were most devoted to each other. They would spend hours playing together, and were often left alone together for long periods. The cat never manifested any tendency to regard the bird in the light of food; she seemed, however, well aware of the danger it might be under from other cats, and invariably drove these away when they endeavored to approach the house. This cat was also friendly to a tame robin which preceded the quail as pet in the same family.

And furthermore, assistance is frequently given spontaneously where there has been no association before the act. There are a number of instances on record, and supported by good authority, where dogs have brought suffering individuals of their own kind to places where they had themselves received aid. Romanes cites from Mr. Oswald Fitch the story of a domestic cat who "was observed to take out some fish-bones from the house to the garden, and, being followed, was seen to have placed them in front of a miserably thin and evidently hungry stranger cat, who was devouring them; not satisfied with that, our cat returned, procured a fresh supply, and repeated its charitable offer, which was apparently as gratefully accepted. This act of benevolence over, our cat returned to its customary dining-place, the scullery, and ate its own dinner off the remainder of the bones."[146] Romanes says further: "An almost precisely similar case has been independently communicated to me by Dr. Allen Thomson, F.R.S. The only difference was that Dr. Thomson's cat drew the attention of the cook to the famishing stranger outside by pulling her dress and leading her to the place. When the cook supplied the hungry cat with some food, the other one paraded round and round while the meal was being discussed, purring loudly." "Mr. H. A. Macpherson writes me that in 1876 he had an old male cat and a kitten aged a few months. The cat, who had long been a favorite, was jealous of the kitten and 'showed considerable aversion to it.' One day the floor of a room in the basement of the house was taken up in order to repair some pipes. The day after the boards had been replaced, the cat 'entered the kitchen (he lived almost wholly on the drawing-room floor above), rubbed against the cook, and mewed without ceasing until he had engaged her attention. He then, by running to and fro, drew her to the room in which the work had taken place. The servant was puzzled until she heard a faint mew from beneath her feet. On the boards being lifted, the kitten emerged safe and sound, though half-starved. The cat watched the proceedings with the greatest interest until the kitten was released; but, on ascertaining that it was safe, he at once left the room, without evincing any pleasure at its return. Nor did he subsequently become really friendly with it.'"

I cite still one other instance of animal affection from Romanes: "One of a shooting-party under a banian tree killed a female monkey, and carried it to his tent, which was soon surrounded by forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise and seemed disposed to attack the aggressor. They retreated when he presented his fowling-piece, the dreadful effect of which they had witnessed, and appeared perfectly to understand. The head of the troop, however, stood his ground, chattering furiously; the sportsman, who perhaps felt some little degree of compunction for having killed one of the family, did not like to fire at the creature, and nothing short of firing would suffice to drive him off. At length he came to the door of the tent, and finding threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning and by the most expressive gesture seemed to beg for the dead body. It was given him; he took it sorrowfully in his arms and bore it away to his expecting companions. They who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to fire at one of the monkey race."[147]

As to the changeable and capricious appearance of the assistance rendered in animal associations, by one member to another, it may be said that any being of a different species who could look into our towns and cities might easily find as great problems of caprice here as among the ants and bees. We, too, leave our fellows to perish unaided; we, too, kill off, by neglect and hard usage, often not only or chiefly our drones, but even some of our most industrious, useful members of society. With us, too, there is very often greater hostility towards enemies than kindness towards friends. Many savage tribes, that we certainly concede to be endowed with intelligence, could learn of the ants, rather than teach them, with regard to the duties of mutual aid. With regard to other species than his own, even so-called civilized man is often eminently selfish and cruel. Among the savages the most extreme cruelty is often shown. Bain, in an essay entitled "Is there Such a Thing as Pure Malevolence?" cites from a book, "Siberian Pictures," together with mention of the pleasure shown by onlookers in the drowning of a man, an instance where boys seemed to find a genuine and peculiar delight in slowly roasting a dog to death.[148] And Bruce describes in his travels the feasts of the Abyssinians, where the flesh was cut from an ox alive and bellowing with pain. But our police courts frequently bear witness to the possibility of the most wanton cruelty performed by people within our own most enlightened societies, although we may claim that cruelty is not so general in civilized societies. I personally have known of a case where, a horse becoming suddenly ill and falling upon the road, it was prodded by its owner with a pitchfork until it died of its wounds; and of another case where a man fastened to a tree a harmless kitten that had wandered into his yard, and deliberately stoned it to death. Surely we have very little right to criticise the slaughter of animals by other species, while we ourselves name the taking of life "sport." Our criticism of the play of the cat with the mouse as "cruel" is humorous—if there can be any humor connected with cruelty—as long as we ourselves find delight in the prolonged struggle of the trout and the torture of the fox-chase. Perhaps the cat may be under the impression that the mouse takes pleasure in being played with; certainly we can believe that this is possible, when beings who claim to possess so much higher intelligence can gravely assert that the fox enjoys the chase.