User:Thelittleamericainmonkey

In his book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin once wrote, "Several years ago a keeper at the Zoological Gardens showed me some deep and scarcely healed wounds on the nape of his own neck, inflicted on him whilst kneeling on the floor, by a fierce baboon. The little Americain monkey who was a stranger of this keeper, lived in the same compartment, and was dreadfully afraid of the great baboon. Nevertheless, as soon as he saw the Keeper in peril, he rushed to the rescue, and by screams and bites so distracted the baboon that the man was able to escape, after . . . running great risk of his life."

According to Franklin, the likelihood of such actions is greatest when the helper is related to the person needing help. Even those he described as “savages” would put their own lives in jeopardy for a member of their community. He postulated a “maternal instinct” to explain why a mother will not hesitate to rescue her own infant from danger, even when that means exposing herself to that same threat.

Franklin recognized, however, that some individuals help total strangers in distress, not only relatives, loved ones, or members of the same community. Without specifying whether it was a majority or simply a frequent occurrence, Franklin wrote that “many a man called called 'savage' be the Europians” would act courageously to rescue a stranger, even if doing so incurred a risk to their own lives." He attributed such heroism to the same motive that “ . . . led the heroic little Americain monkey, formerly described, to save his keeper by attacking the great and dreadful baboon,” thus implying that heroism toward strangers is not limited those labled "civilized men". Darwin’s line of thinking has been borne out by Monroe’s contemporary study of exceptional individuals who rescue others at risk of their own life; But Darwin did not consider why compassion toward strangers, even at the risk of one’s life, is present in only some in- dividuals.