Let us take one more case. There are plenty of men who would like to
kiss every pretty girl they see, and no one would be so foolish as to
regard a kiss as proof of _affection_. Yet Lyon (another of the
witnesses on whom Westermarck relies) accepts, with a naïveté
equalling Captain Bourke's, the rubbing together of noses, which among
the Eskimos is an equivalent of our kissing, as a mark of "affection."
In the case of unscientific travellers, such a loose use of words may
perhaps be pardonable, but a specialist who writes a history of
marriage should not put the label of "affection" on everything that
comes into his drag-net, as Westermarck does (pp. 358-59); a
proceeding the less excusable because he himself admits, a few pages
later (362), that affection is chiefly provoked by "intellectual,
emotional, and moral qualities" which certainly could not be found
among some of the races he refers to. I have investigated a number of
the alleged cases of conjugal "affection" in books of travel, and
found invariably that some manifestation of sensual attachment was
recklessly accepted as an indication of "affection."
In part, it is true, the English language is to be blamed for this
state of affairs. The word affection has been used to mean almost any
disposition of the mind, including passion, lust, animosity, and a
morbid state. But in good modern usage it means or implies an
altruistic feeling of devotion which urges us to seek the welfare of
another even at the expense of our own. We call a mother affectionate
because she willingly and eagerly sacrifices herself for her child,
toils for it, loses sleep and food and health for its sake. If she
merely cared for it [note the subtle double sense of "caring for"]
because it is pretty and amusing, we might concede that she "liked"
it, was "attached" to it, or "fond" of it; but it would be incorrect
to speak of affection. Liking, attachment, and fondness differ from
affection not only in degree but in kind; they are selfish, while
affection is unselfish; they occur among savages, while affection is
peculiar to civilized persons and perhaps some animals.