The Principles of Psychology

that it is an everlasting delight to hold the being which she has brought forth protectingly in her arms, to dress it, to wash it, to rock it to sleep, or to still its hunger.” So far the worthy Schneider, to whose words may be added this remark, that the passionate devotion of a mother — in herself, perhaps — to a sick or dying child is perhaps the most simply beautiful moral spectacle that human life affords. Contemning every danger, triumphing over every difficulty, outlasting all fatigue, woman’s love is here invincibly superior to anything that man can show. These are the most prominent of the tendencies which are worthy of being called instinctive in the human species. 35 It will be observed that no other mammal, not even the monkey, shows so large an array . In a perfectly-rounded development, every one of these instincts would start a habit toward certain objects and inhibit a habit toward certain others.