The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-03-21
INNATE ALTRUISM.

lie from nrSJ TO last as process
where merciless competition and
cruelty are the honored rule; that ma
ture is the struggle of selfishness;
that, therefore such struggle is prop
erly the rule of civilization; that
might is the only right which nature
knows, and the weak go to the wall,
where they had better go.
Prof. Huxley, in his latest volume
of collected essays, after painting in
the blacklist colors tho injustice of
the world, appeals to the logic
of facts as proving that 'the cosmos
works through the lower nature of
man, not for righteousness, but
against it" AS the immoral and i'm
moral sentiments of mankind have
been evolved, no less than the moral,
he declares that there is, SO far,
as much natural sanction for the
one as for the other" 1.-THE thief
and the murderer" he bluntly says,
"follow nature as much as the
philanthropist." Progress in savage
state is by qualities shared with ape
and tiger.
Has nature, then, no sanction for
morality or friendship? 1t is an in
portant question. The term nature,
properly used, means the whole of
creation, not its lower half only. Man
is in it, as we'll as the beast. We
Judge the real nature of anything by
its best. The fundamental law of
nature is cooperation. Every flower
lives for others. Every seed, every
egg, is token of love. Paternity
implies regard for another more or
less permanent Maternity is synony
nous with self-sacrifice. As we look
through the annals of natural history,
what curious, and even romantic de-
tails are beheld, growing out of these
fruitful roots, refuting the calumny
that the cosmic order is one solely of
cruelty and selfshness.
The weasel, which, as the Rev. j.
G. Wood relates, came to pick up
and carry away an injured comrade;
the rats, who led sightless compan-
ion by straw; the blind pelican,
who was fed by neighbors on fish
brought many miles; the gander that
guided his blind comrade about by
gently taking her neck in his bill;
the old baboon, who came down from
his own place of safety on the hill to
force his way through pack of dogs
and carry off young baboon that
had remained behind in peril, these
instances of tender feeling and gen
erous deeds might be called the de-
lightful romances of natural history,
were it not that every one of them is
a we'll attested fact; they are only
few among many similar cases.
The social animals have an immense
preponderance over the unsocial.
From all of which we feel warranted
in the assertion that the innate tend
ency to altruism, or brotherly love, is
rooted in the constitution of nature.
Man voices it, as he is able.
The instances of sympathy and
self-sacrifcing kindness among ami
mails are as numerous as they are in
teresting. Sir James Malcolm told
Prof .Romanes personally of amonkey
on ship board, who, when its compan
ion monkey fell overheard, threw to
it a cord, the other end of which was
tied around its own body. Mrs. Olive
Thorne Miller, in lecture at the
Isle of Shoals last summer, told of
cedar bird that she had known to
take charge of nest of young robins
whose parents had been killed, and
to bring up the brood of orphans with
motherly care. Mr.. Belt tells of
number of cases where he has seen
ants that had been buried under clay
or pebbles released by their neighbors,
often with great labor. When seals,
buffaloes or deer are attacked, the
males put the mothers and young and
weak of the herd in the least exposed
place, and go to the front to meet the
enemy. Thomas Edward, the Scotch
naturalist, having wounded sea-
swallow, so that it could not fly. saw
it lifted up by two unwounded COM
rades and carried out to rock in the
sea beyond his reach.
These are illustrations of the altru
ism of nature which furnish us with
parallel suggestions of what Prof.
Drummond calls the "Love Story of
the Universe.
All modern philanthropic enter
prises assume that the root principle
of human nature is in alliance with
the divine nature-not in opposition
to it. In some genuine sense there
is something of God in every man.
rh;s Sonoathipo Christianity sets IT.