Part 4

(1) That there is in flowers a natural tendency towards Symmetry of Form, all normal irregularities being due to the agency of insects and birds.

(2) That the superior Beauty of one flower over another is due to its superior vitality or Health, which, again, is promoted by cross-fertilisation or intermarriage—the choosing of a mate not in the same but in another flower-bed.

Regarding the beauty of flowers a further detail may be added. Some of the coloured lines on flowers are so placed as to guide the visiting bees to the nectar or honey. More complicated colour-patterns probably owe their existence to the advantage of having an easy means of recognition at a distance. It is well known that bees on any single expedition visit the flowers of one species only. Now it has been experimentally proved by Lubbock that bees can distinguish different colours; and, if we may judge by analogy with the human eye, they can distinguish colours at a greater distance than forms. Hence the advantage to each flower of having its own colours in its flag.

IMPERSONAL AFFECTION

From the sexual life of plants we ought to pass on to that of animals; but before doing so, it will be advisable to ascertain clearly what is meant by Romantic Love, and how it differs from other forms of affection, impersonal and personal; from the love for inanimate objects and for plants and animals; from the family affections—maternal, paternal, filial, brotherly, and sisterly love; from friendship; and from conjugal love.

Love is the most attractive word in the language, as Heine and Oliver Wendell Holmes have remarked. Out of every half-dozen novels one is likely to have the word Love in its title, as a bait sure to catch readers. But whereas novelists always use this word in the sense of Romantic or pre-matrimonial Love, in common language it is vaguely used as a synonym for any kind of attachment, from that of Romeo to the schoolgirl who “just _loves_ caramels.” For the verb _to love_ there is perhaps no satisfactory and equally comprehensive substitute; but in place of the noun _love_ it is advisable, at least in a scientific work, to use the word Affection, which comprehends every form of love mentioned above. In the present work Love, with a capital L, always means Romantic Love.

Professor Calderwood, in his _Handbook of Moral Philosophy_, says that “Affection is inclination towards others, disposing us to give from our own resources what may influence them either for good or ill. In practical tendency, the Affections are the reverse of the Desires. Desires absorb, Affections give out. Affections presuppose a recognition of certain qualities in persons, and, in a modified degree, in lower _sentient_ beings, but _not in things_, for the exercise of Affection presupposes in the object of it the possibility either of harmony or antagonism of feeling.”

In other words, the eminent Scotch moralist thinks we can entertain affections only towards human beings, and, to some degree, towards animals; but not towards plants or inanimate objects. Careful analysis of our emotions, however, does not sustain this distinction, which is as unpoetic as it is anthropocentric and unscientific. Dr. Calderwood obviously confounds affection with sympathy. Sympathy means literally to suffer with another, or to share his feelings; and this, indeed, “presupposes in the object of it the possibility either of harmony or antagonism of feeling.” But affection, in his own words, “gives out,” and hence can be bestowed, and _is_ bestowed, by all emotional and refined persons on a variety of “things,” that are neither sentient nor even animate; and a poetic soul will even feel _sympathy_ with such a non-sentient thing as a crushed flower, for his imagination unconsciously endows it with the requisite feeling.

“Things” are of two kinds—those fashioned by man, and those produced by Nature. A poem, a symphony, a violin, a novel come under the first head; a tree, a precious metal, a mountain under the second. An author who has passed through the whole gamut of emotion in writing his book, follows its fate with a paternal pride and an affectionate anxiety as great as if his bodily child had been sent into the world to seek its fortune. Perhaps the story of the German soldier who was carried off his feet by a cannon-ball, and who grasped first his pipe and then his severed leg, is not a legend. For was not his pipe, like a good, friend, associated with all the pleasant hours of his life? An artist certainly can entertain for his favourite instrument an affection almost, if not quite, human in quality. When Ole Bull suffered shipwreck on the Mississippi, he swam ashore, holding his violin high above water, at the risk of his life. And to an amateur who has often called upon his pianoforte to feed his momentary mood with a nocturne or a scherzo, the instrument soon assumes the functions of “a true friend, to whom,” as Bacon would say, “you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.”

As for “things” not produced by man, who that has ever spent a summer in Switzerland is not quite willing to believe the legend of the Swiss Heimweh—the exiled mountaineer’s reminiscent longing and affection for his native haunts, which causes him to die of a broken heart, even if wife and children accompany him in his exile? His feelings are not identical with the æsthetic admiration of a tourist; for these imply a certain degree of novelty and artistic perception foreign to his mind. They are true _impersonal affection_, for the snowy summits, sluggish glaciers, azure lakes, chasing clouds coyly playing hide-and-seek with the scenery below; the balmy breezes, and boisterous storm-winds; the green slopes studded with cows, whose welcome chimes alone interrupt the sublime silence of the Alpine summits. For these sounds and scenes are so interwoven with all his experiences, thoughts, and associations, that he cannot live and be happy without them in a foreign land.

The attitude of an æsthetically-refined visitor is thus expressed by Byron: “I live not in myself, but I become portion of that around me; and to me high mountains are a feeling”—a poetic anticipation of Schopenhauer’s doctrine, that for true æsthetic enjoyment it is necessary that the percipient subject be completely merged in the perceived object,—the personal man and the impersonal mountain becoming one and indistinguishable.

Like Romantic Love, the affection for the grander aspects of Nature appears to be essentially a modern sentiment. The Greeks, as has often been pointed out, had little regard for the impersonal beauties of Nature; and to make the forests, brooks, and mountains attractive to the popular mind the poets had to people them with personal beauties; with nymphs and dryads and goddesses.

The latest phase of the modern passion for impersonal nature includes even its most dismal and awe-inspiring aspects, with an ecstatic predilection that would have seemed incomprehensible to an ancient Greek. This phase has been thus beautifully described by Ruskin: “There is a sense of the material beauty, both of inanimate nature, the lower animals, and human beings, which in the iridescence, colour-depth, and morbid (I use the word deliberately) mystery and softness of it—with other qualities indescribable by any single words, and only to be analysed by extreme care—is found to the full only in five men that I know of in modern times; namely, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, and myself, differing totally and in the entire group of us from the delight in clear-struck beauty of Angelico and the Trecentisti, and separated, much more singularly, from the cheerful joys of Chaucer, Shakspere, and Scott, by its unaccountable _affection_ for ‘Rokkes blok’ and other forms of terror and power, such as those of the ice-oceans, which to Shakspere were only Alpine rheum; and the Via Malas and Diabolic Bridges which Dante would have condemned none but lost souls to climb or cross,—all this love of impending mountains, coiled thunderclouds, and dangerous sea, being joined in us with a sulky, almost ferine, love of retreat in valleys of Charmettes, gulphs of Spezzia, ravines of Olympus, low lodgings in Chelsea, and close brushwood at Coniston.”

Ruskin flatters himself if he still imagines he is the sole living possessor of this feeling. Though there is much hypocrisy and guide-book-star-admiration among tourists, there are yet unquestionably hundreds who enjoy the Via Malas, the ice-oceans and solitary Swiss valleys they visit; and though their dismal delight may not be so intense as Ruskin’s, it is yet sufficient to indicate the growth of a general affection for impersonal nature in all her moods, whether smiling or frowning.

To a mind that can thus rise above human associations and utilities, the sublimest thing in the world is the absolute solitude of an Alpine summit. To the ignorant peasant the harsh cow-bell which interrupts this silence is sweet music, because it suggests the abodes of mankind; and on this primitive stage of æsthetic culture Jeffrey placed himself when he wrote that, “It is man, and man alone, that we see in the beauties of the earth which he inhabits.”

Inasmuch as mountain solitudes are accessible to only a very small proportion of mankind, the existence of true impersonal affection on a large scale can be more easily demonstrated by recurring for a moment to the floral world. A city belle is apt to look upon flowers merely from a social or military point of view; the more bouquets, the more evidence of admiration and conquest. of male hearts. And the city belle can hardly be blamed for this callousness of feeling; for bunched flowers have lost as much of their natural charm and grace as butterflies stuck up on rows of pins in a museum. But watch that fair gardener in a suburban cottage or a country seat; how she recognises every individual plant, every single flower, as a friend for whose comfort she provides with all the affectionate care which as a child she lavished on her doll. If, after a refreshing shower, the flowers hold up their heads and look bright and happy, her face reflects the same feeling; if a drouth has parched them and dimmed their lustre, she will neglect her own pleasures to bring them water, and derive from this charitable action the same sympathetic pleasure as if they had been so many suffering human beings. And if an early frost kills all her floral friends, her sorrow and despair will find vent in a flood of tears. What is all this but affection—true affection—though flowers be but “things,” and not “sentient beings.”

Obviously Professor Calderwood erred in his definition of affection; for, as the above analysis shows, when the regard for an impersonal object rises to the fervour of adoring interest, it does not specifically differ from personal affections any more than, for example, maternal love differs from friendship. Unemotional persons, who have had no opportunities to cultivate their love of Nature, may feel inclined to doubt this; but they should remember that just as there is an intellectual eminence (Shakspere, Kant, Wagner) which the ignorant are too lazy or too weak to climb, so there is an emotional horizon, beyond which those only can see who have taken the trouble to ascend the summit whence a wider scene is unfolded to the view.

From one point of view, impersonal affections are even higher and nobler than personal attachments. The evolution of emotions has been but little studied, but so much is apparent—that there has been a gradual development from utilitarian attachments to those that are less utilitarian, or less obviously so. Personal affections are too often exclusively selfish and based on material interests, as the loss of “friends,” which commonly follows the loss of wealth or position, shows. Whereas impersonal attachments are less apt to be interested, selfish, and fickle, since they presuppose more intellectual power, more imagination, more refinement.

Again, although it must be admitted that man is the crown and compendium of Nature, uniting in himself most of the excellences of the lower kingdoms with others exclusively his own; yet it cannot be denied, either, that the vast majority of these “crowns” of Nature are so full of flaws in workmanship, and have lost so many of their jewels, that the sight of them is anything but exhilarating. Indeed, it is obvious that the average plant and the average animal are, _in their way_, far superior to the average man, in beauty, health, vitality; natural selection, which has been arrested in man, having made them so. No wonder, then, that some of the greatest minds have turned away from mankind, and devoted all their thoughts and energies to the world of “things” and ideas.

Goethe and other men of genius have often been accused of being cold and unsympathetic, because they refused to shape their conduct so as to please the people with whom they chanced to come into contact. Had they wasted their affections and sympathies on their commonplace admirers and acquaintances, instead of bestowing them on art and science, on the great ideas that teemed in their brains, we should now be without many of those glorious works which could never have been created had not their authors ignored personal relations for the time being, and bestowed all their warmest impersonal affections on their ideas.

As compared with men of genius, women have achieved but little that can lay claim to immortal fame; and the principal reason of this is that their affections are apt to be too exclusively personal. A girl will assiduously practice on the piano as long as that will assist her in fascinating her suitors. But how many women, outside the ranks of teachers, continue their practice after marriage, from the _impersonal_ love of music itself? Needless to say they have no time; for every hour devoted to emotional refreshment strengthens the nerves for two hours of extra labour.

As regards the love of Nature, woman is, indeed, artificially hampered. She may botanise to some extent, but she cannot, as a rule, indulge in those solitary walks in a virgin forest which alone can establish a deep communion with Nature. If accompanied by friend, brother, husband, or lover, her thought will inevitably retain a human tinge. No doubt there is something comic in the ardent affection with which a German professor hugs his pet theory regarding the Greek dative, or the origin of honey in flowers, and in the ferocity with which he will defend it against his best friends, if they happen to oppose it. But such complete devotion to abstract crotchets is absolutely necessary to the discovery of original ideas: and as women are rarely able or willing to emerge from the haunts of personal emotion, this explains why they have achieved greatness in hardly anything but novel-writing, which is chiefly concerned with personal emotions.

PERSONAL AFFECTIONS

I.—LOVE FOR ANIMALS

Over inanimate objects and plants we have this great emotional advantage that we can love them, whereas they cannot love us, nor even one another, though related by marriage, like flowers.

Animals, however, can love both us and one another and be loved; and this establishes a distinction between them and lower beings, and a relationship with us, that warrants us in placing their attachments under the head of Personal Affections.

Calderwood is sufficiently liberal to admit that, to a degree animals may be included in our affections. But Adolf Horwicz who has written the most complete, and, on the whole, most satisfactory analysis of the human feelings in existence, denies this. “Love is and remains a personal feeling,” he asserts; it “can only be referred to persons, not to things. The tenderness of American ladies towards dogs and cats is simply a gross emotional caricature.”

So it is, very often, especially in the case of ladies who neglect their children and make fashionable pets of animals, changing and exchanging them with the fashion. But it is simply absurd to mention this case as a fair instance of human love towards animals. How many of the greatest geniuses the world has produced have become famous for their affectionate devotion to their dogs! “A dog!” says an old English writer, “is the only thing on this earth that loves you more than he loves himself.” And should we be morally inferior to the dog—unable to love him in return? especially when we remember that “histories,” as Pope remarks, “are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”

Vischer, the well-known German writer on æsthetics, goes so far as to admit that whenever he is in society his only wish is, “Oh, if there was only a dog here!”

There is something much nobler and deeper than sarcasm on humanity in Byron’s famous epitaph on his dog:—

“Near this spot Are deposited the remains of one Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the Virtues of man without his Vices.”

I wonder if Horwicz could read the following exquisite prose poem of Turgenieff without feeling ashamed of himself:—

"We two are sitting in the room: my dog and I. A violent storm is raging without.

"The dog sits close before me—he gazes straight into my eyes.

"And I too gaze straight into his eyes.

"It seems as if he wished to say something to me. He is dumb, has no words, does not understand himself; but I understand him.

"I understand that he and I are at this moment governed by the same feeling, that there is not the slightest difference between us. We are beings of the same kind. In each of us shines and glows the same flame.

"Death approaches, flapping his broad, cold, moist wings....

"And all is ended.

"Who then will establish the difference between the flames which glowed within us two?

"No! We who exchange those glances are not animal and man.

"Created alike are the two pairs of eyes that are fixed on each other.

“And each of these eye-pairs, that of the man as well as that of the animal, expresses clearly and distinctly _an anxious craving for mutual caresses_.”

It is a vicious trait of the human character that it soon grows callous to caresses, and that the unmasked expression of tender emotion is regarded as undignified and in “bad form.” It is the absence in the dog’s mind of this ugly human trait that makes him such a delightful friend and companion. However much you caress and fondle him, he will always be anxious and grateful for the next gentle pat on the head, the next kind look, and will never despise you for any excess of fond emotion lavished on him.

The greatest flaw in Christian ethics is, that it takes so little account of this capacity of animals for affection, and our duties towards them. The duty of kindness towards animals is indeed, as Mr. Lecky remarks, “the one form of humanity which appears more prominently in the Old Testament than in the New.” “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,” is a precept which deprecates even a very modified form of cruelty to animals. Had this precept been given in a more generalised and comprehensive form, what an incalculable amount of suffering might have been saved the animals that had the misfortune to be born in Christian countries, as compared with those in the Oriental countries.

According to Mr. Lecky, Plutarch was the first writer who placed the duty of kindness to animals on purely moral grounds; “and he urges that duty with an emphasis and detail to which no adequate parallel can, I believe, be found in the Christian writings for at least 1700 years.” Some of the earlier Greek philosophers had based this duty on the doctrine of the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies; and it is related that Pythagoras used to buy of fishermen the whole contents of their nets, for the pleasure of letting the fish go again. Leonardo da Vinci, from less superstitious motives, used to buy caged birds for the same purpose; and similar traits are told of other men of genius who were sufficiently refined to recognise the evidences of emotion in animals. In our times, finally, we have a man, Mr. Bergh, who devotes his whole life to the object of establishing the personal rights of animals to kind treatment on legal grounds.

But, after all, the most influential friend animals have ever possessed was Darwin, who, by establishing their relationship to man on grounds which no one who understands the evidence can question, for ever vindicated for them the privilege of personal affection. The very grammar of our language has been affected by Darwinism. Formerly, it was customary to write “the dog _which_ jumped into the water to save a child.” Now we say, “the dog _who_ jumped into the water.” In other words, animals are no longer regarded as “things,” or animated machines, but as persons.

II.—MATERNAL LOVE

Within the range of impersonal emotions and affections, as we have seen, women are vastly inferior to men; but in personal affections—partly owing to their almost exclusive devotion to them—women are commonly superior to men. Not always, however; for, as we shall see later on, the prevalent dogma that woman’s Romantic Love is deeper and more ardent than man’s is an absurd myth. But in conjugal affection—which differs widely from Romantic Love—woman is generally more sincere, devoted, and self-sacrificing than man. In friendship, too, women are more sincere and ardent than men; for friendship is an ancient, rather than a modern sentiment; and as women are more conservative than men, they have preserved this sentiment (at least in early life), while among men it has become nearly extinct:—

“All friendship is feigning, all loving mere folly.”—SHAKSPERE.

But the one affection in which woman stands infinitely above man is the maternal, compared with which paternal love is ordinarily a mere shadow. Romantic Love in man and child-love in woman are the two strongest passions which the human mind entertains.

In depth and strength these two passions are perhaps alike. In point of antiquity, the maternal feeling has an advantage over the Love-passion; for, of all personal affections, the maternal was developed first, and the sentiment of Romantic Love last.

Personal affections are of two kinds: (1) Those based on blood-relationship—maternal, paternal, filial, brotherly, and sisterly love; (2) Those not based on blood-relationship—friendship and Romantic Love. Conjugal affection belongs psychologically to the first class.

That of all relationships the one between mother and child is the most intimate is obvious. The child is part and parcel of the mother: her own flesh and blood and soul; and in loving it the mother practically loves a detached portion of herself—thus uniting the force of selfish with that of altruistic emotion. This is the primitive fountain of maternal affection. A second source of it lies in the resemblance of the child to the father, reviving in the mother’s memory the romantic days of pre-matrimonial Love. It must be an unending source of interest in a mother’s mind to note which of the child’s traits are derived from her, which from the father. If she loves herself, and loves her husband, the child that unites the traits of both must be doubly dear to her. The fact that the child is inseparably associated with all the mother’s joys and sorrows, from the wedding-day to death, constitutes a third source of her attachment; and a fourth is the social regard and honour which an energetic and gifted son, or a beautiful and accomplished daughter, may reflect on her.