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Since Drummond has provided us with an absolutely wonderful description of

Fiske’s nurturing explanation for our moral nature, the following is a condensation of that

account:

‘The...

pinnacle of the temple of Nature...

is... The Mammalia,

THE MOTHERS

...

[It is]

That

care for others, from which the Mammalia take their name...

All elementary animals are orphans...

they waken to isolation, to apathy, to the attentions only of those who seek their doom. But as we draw

nearer the apex of the animal kingdom, the spectacle of a protective Maternity looms into view...

[the]

love of offspring...

That early world, therefore, for millions and millions of years was a bleak and

loveless world. It was a world without children and a world without Mothers. It is good to realize how

heartless Nature was till these arrived...

the ethical effect...

of this early arrangement was nil...

There

was no time to love, no opportunity to love, and no object to love...

Now, before Maternal Love can be

evolved out of this first care...

Nature must...

cause fewer young to be produced at a birth...

make them

helpless, so that for a time they must dwell with her...

And...

she...

dwell with them...

In this

[

Mammal

]

child...

infancy reaches its last perfection...

On the physiological side, the name of this impelling power

is lactation; on the ethical side, it is Love...

Millions of millions of Mothers had lived in the world

before this, but the higher affections were unborn. Tenderness, gentleness, unselfishness, love, care,

self-sacrifice—these as yet were not, or were only in the bud...To create Motherhood and all that

enshrines...

required a human child...

The only thing that remains now is...

that they

[human mother

and child]

shall both be kept in that school as long as it is possible to...give affection time to grow...

No animal except Man was permitted to have his education

[in

love

]

thus prolonged...

We know what

this delay means ethically—it was necessary for moral training that the human child should have

the longest possible time by its Mother’s side...

A sheep knows its lamb only while it is a lamb. The

affection in these cases, fierce enough while it lasts, is soon forgotten, and the traces it left in the brain

are obliterated before they have furrowed into habit

[Note here recognition that the training in love

wears off with age, which, as was explained in ch.

5:9

, is why there was the selection for neotenous

youth in the love-indoctrination process]

... To her

[

the human mother

]

alone was given a curric