their offspring, we shall find, if possible more markedly, that increase of
intelligence and virility does not diminish but increases the strength of
the affections. As the primitive, ignorant male, often willingly selling
his offspring or exposing his female infants to death, often develops, with
the increase of culture and intelligence, into the extremely devoted and
self-sacrificing male progenitor of civilised societies; so, yet even more
markedly, does the female relation with her offspring, become intensified
and permanent, as culture and intelligence and virility increase. The
Bushwoman, like the lowest female barbarians in our own societies, will
often readily dispose of her infant son for a bottle of spirits or a little
coin; and even among somewhat more mentally developed females, strong as is
the affection of the average female for her new born offspring, the
closeness of the relation between mother and child tends rapidly to shrink
as time passes, so that by the time of adolescence is reached the relation
between mother and son becomes little more than a remembrance of a close
inter-union which once existed. It is, perhaps, seldom, till the very
highest point of intellectual growth and mental virility has been reached
by the human female, that her relation with her male offspring becomes a
permanent and active and dominant factor in the lives of both. The
concentrated and all-absorbing affection and fellowship which existed
between the greatest female intellect France has produced and the son she
bore, dominating both lives to the end, the fellowship of the English
historian with his mother, who remained his chosen companion and the sharer
of all his labours through life, the relation of St. Augustine to his
mother, and those of countless others, are relations almost inconceivable
where the woman is not of commanding and active intelligence, and where the
passion of mere physical instinct is completed by the passion of the
intellect and spirit.

There appears, then, from the study of human nature in the past, no ground