Though the little baby is the strongest stimulus to this instinct, older children and even adults, provided they are like the baby in being winsome and helpless in some way, may arouse the same sort of feeling and behavior, tender feeling and protective behavior. A pet animal may arouse the same tendency, and a "darling little calf" or a "cute little baby elephant" may awaken something of the same thrill. Even a young plant may be tended with a devotion akin to the maternal. The fact seems to be here, as with other instincts, that objects similar to the natural stimulus may arouse the same impulse and emotion. Love between the sexes is often a compound of sex attraction and the mothering instinct; and it is interesting to watch a happily mated couple each mothering the other. But is it allowable to speak of this instinct as present in the male human being, or in any one not a mother? Undoubtedly the woman who has recently become a mother is most susceptible to the appeal of a little baby, but the response of other women and of girls to a baby is so spontaneous that we cannot but call it instinctive. Men and boys have no special desire to feed or cuddle a little baby, and are quite contented to leave the care of the baby mostly to the "women folks". But they do object strongly to seeing the {150} baby hurt or ill-treated, and will respond by protecting it. Also, they like to watch the baby act, and like to help it along in its efforts to do things. This may be instinctive in the man; at least it reminds us of the behavior of a mother cat or dog or horse, when she plays with her young and stimulates them to action. When the mother cat brings a live mouse for her half-grown kittens to practise on, she is acting instinctively, and probably a man is obeying the same instinct when he brings the baby a toy and derives pleasure from watching the baby's attempts to use it. The parental instinct would thus seem to lie at the root of education, considered as an enterprise of adults directed towards getting the young to acquire the behavior of the race; and it also lies at the root of charity, the desire to protect the helpless. Is there any instinct in the child answering to the parental, any "filial" instinct, as it were? Psychologists have usually answered no, but possibly they have been misled by the word "filial" and looked in the wrong direction. The parental instinct is an instinct to give, and the answering instinct would be one to take--not to give in return. It is probably not instinctive for the child to do for the parent, but is it not instinctive for the child to take from the parent, and to look to the parent for what he wants? It is not exactly "unnatural conduct" in a child to impose on his mother, as it would be in the mother to impose on the child; but would it not be unnatural in a child to take an unreceptive and distrustful attitude towards his mother?