of attachment which binds the offspring to the parent, runs through all
those ranks of the animal creation in which the young for a time depend
upon the mother for food or for protection. The chickens in any moment
of alarm run to the hen; and the lamb, the calf, and the colt to their
respective mothers; but none of them would feel the least inclination to
come to the rescue of the parent if the parent was in danger. With the
mother herself it is exactly the reverse. Her heart--if we can speak of the
seat of the maternal affections of such creatures as a heart--is filled
with desires to bestow good upon her offspring, without a desire, or even a
thought, of receiving any good from them in return.

There is this difference, however, between the race of man and those of
the inferior animals--namely, that in his case the instinct, or at least
a natural desire which is in some respects analogous to an instinct,
prompting him to repay to his parents the benefits which he received from
them in youth, comes in due time; while in that of the lower animals it
seems never to come at all. The little birds, after opening their mouths
so wide every time the mother comes to the nest during all the weeks while
their wings are growing, fly away when they are grown, without the least
care or concern for the anxiety and distress of the mother occasioned by
their imprudent flights; and once away and free, never come back, so far
as we know, to make any return to their mother for watching over them,
sheltering them with her body, and working so indefatigably to provide them
with food during the helpless period of their infancy--and still less to
seek and protect and feed her in her old age. But the boy, reckless as he
sometimes seems in his boyhood, insensible apparently to his obligations
to his mother, and little mindful of her wishes or of her feelings--his
affection for her showing itself mainly in his readiness to go to her with
all his wants, and in all his troubles and sorrows--will begin, when he has
arrived at maturity and no longer needs her aid, to remember with gratitude