On the other hand, in the love of a young child for his mother the case is reversed.  The love of the child consists chiefly in liking to be with his mother, in going to her rather than to any one else for relief from pain or for comfort in sorrow, and is accompanied with very few and very faint desires to make efforts, or to submit to privations, or to make sacrifices, for the promotion of her good.

Order of their Development.

Now the qualities and characteristics of the soul on which the capacity for these two forms of love depend seem to be very different, and they advance in development and come to maturity at different periods of life; so that the mother, in feeling dejected and sad because she can not awaken in the mind of her child the gratitude and the consideration for her comfort and happiness which she desires, is simply looking for a certain kind of fruit at the wrong time.  You have one of the forms of love for you on the part of the child now while he is young.  In due time, when he arrives at maturity, if you will wait patiently, you will assuredly have the other.  Now he runs to you in every emergency.  He asks you for every thing that he wants.  He can find comfort nowhere else but in your arms, when he is in distress or in suffering from pain, disappointment, or sorrow.  But he will not make any effort to be still when you are sick, or to avoid interrupting you when you are busy; and insists, perhaps, on your carrying him when he is tired, without seeming to think or care whether you may not be tired too.  But in due time all this will be changed.  Twenty years hence he will conceal all his troubles from you instead of coming with them to you for comfort.  He will be off in the world engaged in his pursuits, no longer bound closely to your side.  But he will think all the time of your comfort and happiness.  He will bring you presents, and pay you innumerable attentions to cheer your heart in your declining years.  He will not run to you when he has hurt himself; but if any thing happens to you, he will leave every thing to hasten to your relief, and bring with him all the comforts and means of enjoyment for you that his resources can command.  The time will thus come when you will have his love to your heart’s content, in the second form.  You must be satisfied, while he is so young, with the first form of it, which is all that his powers and faculties in their present stage are capable of developing.

The truth of the case seems to be that the faculties of the human mind—­or I should perhaps rather say, the susceptibilities of the soul—­like the instincts of animals, are developed in the order in which they are required for the good of the subject of them.