The Courtship of AnimalsPycraft, W. P. (William Plane)
Science
The Courtship of Animals
Pycraft, W. P. (William Plane)
Animal behavior; Natural selection
This more varied and adventurous existence roused new centres of
activity in his brain; he began to perceive, though dimly, the
possibilities of a larger life, though doubtless one which would
minister to his own comfort rather than to that of his family—the
natural and only road to better things. He began to devise more
expeditious means of securing food, and circumventing his enemies,
among whom the most formidable was his fellow-man, because in him he
met his match. In the course of his wanderings he had learned the use
of stones as weapons—which he could never have done in the forests—and
he had also discovered the value of his family as ministers to his
comfort, if only by setting them to collect such food as did not
require strength and cunning in its capture. An inherent love of the
chase for the sake of the excitement which this afforded probably made
him nothing loth to regard hunting as his own peculiar duty. A little
later the advantages of neighbourliness were borne in on him, largely
for the sake of the greater ease wherewith the animals of the chase
could be captured by their combined efforts; but this begat comradeship
and some of the graces which follow therefrom.
Thus was laid the foundation of Society and “civilization” with all its
attendant barbarities. Then, as now, whatever discordant notes were
heard, were those struck by the twin Demons Envy and Jealousy. These
disturbers of the peace are parasites on Society, their very existence
depends on it. They have played a larger part in fashioning its rules
and regulations than is generally realized. Their influence is as
powerful to-day as ever in the past. It expresses itself in varying
degrees in different individuals, and is roused by varying causes. But
the most potent of all is jealousy in regard to sexual matters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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