This we might have thought was a gift only to ourselves--an exception only found in the human race; now we see that it has been gradually developing throughout the whole animal world, and that the love of fathers and mothers for their young is one of the first and greatest weapons in fighting life’s battle. So we learn that after all, the struggle is not entirely one of cruelty or ferocity, but that the higher the animal life becomes, the more important is family love and the sense of affection for others, so that at last a fierce beast of prey with strength and sharp tools at his command, is foiled in attacking a weak young calf, because the elders of the herd gather round him, and the destroyer is kept at bay. Surely then we have here a proof that, after all, the highest and most successful education which Life has given her children to fit them for winning the race is that “unity is strength;” while the law of love and duty beginning with parent and child and the ties of home life, and developing into the mutual affection of social animals, has been throughout a golden thread, strengthened by constant use in contending with the fiercer and more lawless instincts. So it becomes evident that the beautiful virtue of self-devotion, one of the highest man can practise, has its roots in the very existence of life upon the earth. It may appear dimly at first,--it may take a hard mechanical form in such lowly creatures as insects, where we saw the bees and ants sacrificing all tender feelings to the good of the community. But in the backboned family it exists from the very first as the tender love of mother for child, of the father for his mate and her young ones, and so upwards to the defence of the tender ones of the herd by the strong and well-armed elders, till it has found its highest development in man himself. Thus we arrive at the greatest and most important lesson that the study of nature affords us. It is interesting, most interesting, to trace the gradual evolution of numberless different forms, and see how each has become fitted for the life it has to live. It gives us courage to struggle on under difficulties when we see how patiently the lower animals meet the dangers and anxieties of their lives, and conquer or die in the struggle for existence. But far beyond all these is the great moral lesson taught at every step in the history of the development of the animal world, that amidst toil and suffering, struggle and death, the supreme law of life is the law of SELF-DEVOTION AND LOVE. FOOTNOTES [1] Almost every animal mentioned in this book is to be found alive in the London Zoological Gardens, or stuffed in the British Museum. [2] The Figures in the text, which, with exception of about twenty, have all been drawn expressly for this book, are the work of the above-mentioned artists, together with Mr. Coombe and Miss Suft. [3] _Life and her Children_, p. 135. [4] Amphioxus lanceolatus (_amphi_ both, _oxus_ sharp).