One of the
most important origins of association and prepossession is seen in
the relation of parents, particularly of mothers, to children. This
begins, of course, among the lower animals. The mammalian class, in
particular, is distinguished by the strength and persistence of the
devotion of parents to offspring. The advantage secured by the form
of reproduction characteristic of man and the other mammals is that
a closer connection is secured between the child and the mother. By
the intra-uterine form of reproduction the association of mother and
offspring is set up in an organic way before the birth of the latter,
and is continued and put on a social basis during the period of
lactation and the early helpless years of the child. By continuing the
helpless period of the young for a period of years, nature has made
provision on the time side for a complex physical and mental type,
impossible in types thrown at birth on their own resources. Along
with the structural modification of the female on account of the
intra-uterine form of reproduction and the effort of nature to secure
a more complex type and a better chance of survival, there is a
corresponding development of the sentiments, and maternal feeling,
in particular, is developed as the subjective condition necessary
to carrying out the plan of giving the infant a prolonged period of
helplessness and play through which its faculties are developed.
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