"It is impossible to believe that the operation of this, the most
powerful of the instincts, is not accompanied by a strong and
definite emotion; one may see the emotion expressed unmistakably by
almost any mother among the higher animals, especially the birds
and the mammals--by the cat, for example, and by most of the
domestic animals; and it is impossible to doubt that this emotion
has in all cases the peculiar quality of the tender emotion
provoked in the human parent by the spectacle of her helpless
offspring. This primary emotion has been very generally ignored by
the philosophers and psychologists; that is, perhaps, to be
explained by the fact that this instinct and its emotion are in the
main decidedly weaker in men than women, and in some men, perhaps,
altogether lacking. We may even surmise that the philosophers as a
class are men among whom this defect of native endowment is
relatively common."
Dr. McDougall goes on to show how from this emotion and its impulse to
cherish and protect spring generosity, gratitude, love, true
benevolence, and altruistic conduct of every kind; in it they have their
main and absolutely essential root without which they would not be. He
argues that the intimate alliance between tender emotion and anger is
of great importance for the social life of man, for "the anger invoked
in this way is the germ of all moral indignation, and on moral
indignation justice and the greater part of public law are in the main
founded.
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