re.]

Now the instincts and delights which nature associates with reproduction
cannot stretch so far. Their magic fails, and the political and
industrial family, which still thinks itself natural, is in truth casual
and conventional. There is no real instinct to protect those who can
already protect themselves; nor have they any profit in obeying nor, in
the end, any duty to do so. A _patria potestas_ much prolonged or
extended is therefore an abuse and prolific in abuses. The chieftain's
mind, not being ruled by paternal instincts, will pursue arbitrary
personal ends, and it is hardly to be expected that his own wealth or
power or ideal interests will correspond with those of his subjects. The
government and supervision required by adults is what we call political;
it should stretch over all families alike. To annex this political
control to fatherhood is to confess that social instinct is singularly
barren, and that the common mind is not plastic enough to devise new
organs appropriate to the functions which a large society involves.

After all, the family is an early expedient and in many ways
irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be
nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees,
and if lovers had never been tied together by a bond less ethereal than
ideal passion, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a
division of labour would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but
it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family.
For we pay a high price for our conquests in this quarter, and the
sweets of home are balanced not only by its tenderer sorrows, but by a
thousand artificial prejudices, enmities, and restrictions. It takes
patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer
unhappiness. Young men escape as soon as they can, at least in fancy,
into the wide world; all prophets are homeless and all inspired artists;
philosophers think out some communism or other, and monks put it in
practice. There is indeed no more irrational ground for living together
than that we have sprung from the same loins. They say blood is thicker
than water; yet similar forces easily compete while dissimilar forces
may perhaps co-operate. It is the end that is sacred, not the beginning.
A common origin unites reasonable creatures only if it involves common
thoughts and purposes; and these may bind together individuals of the
most remote races and