Attachment is stranger than liking, but it also springs from selfish interests and habits. It is apt to be similar to that gratitude which is "a lively sense of favors to come." Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird) eloquently describes (II, 135-136) the attachment to her of a Persian horse, and incidentally suggests the philosophy of the matter in one sentence: "To him I am an embodiment of melons, cucumbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits, and sugar, with a good deal of petting and ear-rubbing thrown in." Cases of attachment between husband and wife no doubt abound among savages, even when the man is usually contemptuous and rude in his treatment of the wife. The Niam-Niam husbands of Schweinfurth did not, as we saw, give any evidence of unselfish affection, but they were doubtless attached to their wives, for obvious reasons. As for the women among the lower races, they are apt, like dogs, to cling to their master, no matter how much he may kick them about. They get from him food and shelter, and blind habit does the rest to attach them to his hearth. What habit and association can do is shown in the ease with which "happy families" of hostile animals can be reared. But the beasts of prey must be well fed; a day or two of fasting would result in the lamb lying down inside the lion. The essential selfishness of attachment is shown also in the way a man becomes attached to his pipe or his home, etc. At the same time, personal attachment may prove the entering wedge of something higher. "The passing attachments of young people are seldom entitled to serious notice; although sometimes they may ripen by long intercourse into a laudable and steady affection" (Crabb).
FOOLISH FONDNESS
The word fondness is sometimes used in the sense of a tender, loving disposition; yet there is nearly always an implication of silly extravagance or unseemly demonstrativeness, and in the most accurate usage it means a foolish, doting indulgence, without discriminating intelligence, or even common-sense. As Crabb puts it in his English Synonyms, "A fond parent does not rise above a fool." Everybody knows fathers and mothers whose fondness induces them to indulge all the appetites, desires, and whims of their children, thereby ruining their health and temper, making them greedy and selfish, and laying the foundation for a wretched life for the children themselves and all who are unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. This irrational fondness is what travellers and anthropologists have so often mistaken for genuine affection in the cases of savages and barbarians who were found to be fondling their babes, doting upon them, playing with them, and refusing to punish them for any naughtiness. But it is far from being affection, because it is not only foolish, but selfish. To some of my readers this may seem a strange accusation, but it is a fact recognized in the best literary usage, for, as Crabb remarks, "a person is fond, who caresses an object or makes it a source of pleasure to himself." Savages fondle their children because in doing so they please and amuse themselves. Their pranks entertain the fathers, and as for the mothers, nature (natural selection) has implanted in them an unconscious instinct of race preservation which, recognizing the selfishness of primitive man, has brought it about that it gives the mother a special pleasure to suckle and fondle her infant. The essential selfishness of this fondness is revealed when there is a conflict between the mother's comfort and the child's welfare. The horrible prevalence among many of the lower races, of infanticide—merely to save trouble—of which many examples are given in various parts of this book (see index)—shows not only how selfish, but how shallow, fondness is. There are thousands of mothers in our modern cities who have not risen above this condition. An Italian, Ferriani, has written a book on degenerate mothers (Madri Snaturate), and I have in my note-books a statement of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children referring to a record of 2,141 cases of proved cruelty in the one month of August, 1898; which would make at least 25,000 cases a year, in one city alone, or possibly double that number, for many cases are never found out, or else consist of mental torture which is worse than bodily maltreatment. Yet there can be no doubt that all, or nearly all, of these mothers were fond of their babies—i.e., fondled them at first, till the animal instinct implanted in them was overcome by the desire for personal comfort. This animal instinct, given to them by nature, is no virtue, for it is unconscious. A tigress has it, but we do not call it a virtue in her any more than we call her cruelty to her prey a vice; she is acting unconsciously in either case, knowing no distinction between good and evil. Fondness, in a word, is not an ethical virtue. In addition to all its enumerated shortcomings, it is, moreover, transient. A dog mother will care for her young for a few months with the watchfulness and temporary ferocity implanted in her by natural selection, but after that she will abandon them and recognize them no more as her own. Sometimes this instinctive fondness ceases with startling rapidity. I remember once in a California yard, how a hen flew in my face angrily because I had frightened her chicks. A few days later she deserted them, before they were really quite old enough to take care of themselves, and all my efforts to make her return and let them sleep again under her warm feathers failed. She even pecked at them viciously. Some of the lower savages similarly abandon their young as soon as they are able to get along, while those who care for them longer, do so not from affection, but because sons are useful assistants in hunting and fighting, and daughters can be sold or traded off for new wives. That they do not keep them from affection is proved by the fact that in all cases where any selfish advantage can be gained they marry them off without reference to their wishes or chances of happiness.[39]
UNSELFISH AFFECTION
While the fondness of savages, which has been so often mistaken for affection, is thus seen to be foolish, unconscious, selfish, shallow, and transient, true affection is rational, conscious, unselfish, deep, and enduring. Being rational, it looks not to the enjoyment or comfort of the moment, but to future and enduring welfare, and therefore does not hesitate to punish folly or misdeeds in order to avert future illness or misfortune. Instead of being a mere instinctive impulse, liable to cease at any moment, like that of the California hen referred to, it is a conscious altruism, never faltering in its ethical sense of duty, utterly incapable of sacrificing another's comfort or well-being to its own. While fondness is found coexisting with cruelty and even with infanticide and cannibalism (as in those Australian mothers, who feed their children well and carry them when tired, but when a real test of altruism comes—during a famine—kill and eat them,[40] just as the men do their wives when they cease to be sensually attractive), affection is horrified at the mere suggestion of such a thing. No man into whose love affection enters as an ingredient would ever injure his beloved merely to gratify himself. Crabb is utterly wrong when he writes that
"love is more selfish in its nature than friendship; in indulging another it seeks its own, and when this is not to be obtained, it will change into the contrary passion of hatred."
This is a definition of lust, not of love—a definition of the passion as known to the Greek Euripides, of whose lovers Benecke says (53):
"If, or as soon as, they fail in achieving the gratification of their sensual desires, their 'love' immediately turns to hate. The idea of devotion or self-sacrifice for the good of the beloved person, as distinct from one's own, is absolutely unknown. 'Love is irresistible,' they say, and, in obedience to its commands, they set down to reckon how they can satisfy themselves, at no matter what cost to the objects of their passion."
How different this unaffectionate "love" from the love of which our poets sing! Shakspere knew that absorbing affection is an ingredient of love: Beatrice loves Benedick "with an enraged affection," which is "past the infinite of the night." Rosalind does not know how many fathom deep she is in love: "It cannot he sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal." Dr. Abel has truly said that
"affection is love tested and purified in the fire of the intellect. It appears when, after the veil of fancy has dropped, a beloved one is seen in the natural beauty with various human limitations, and is still found worthy of the warmest regards. It comes slowly, but it endures; gives more than it takes and has a tinge of tender gratitude for a thousand kind actions and for the bestowal of enduring happiness. According to English ideas, a deep affection, through whose clear mirror the gold of the old love shimmers visibly, should be the fulfilment of marriage."