Robert Ardrey's account describes one of those grim life-and-death incidents that occur constantly in nature. This particular incident involved a troop of baboons and a leopard. Leopards eat baboons. It is said that baby baboons are leopards' favorite dessert. However, the big cats won't attack a baboon troop that is foraging in formation with five or six males tactically situated for a united defense. For a kill, a leopard awaits one of the disorganized moments in the baboons' pattern of life. Ardrey's account describes one of those terrible moments. A naturalist, Professor Marais, was the observer:

It was still dusk. The troop [of baboons] had only just returned from the feeding grounds and had barely time to reach its scattered places in the high piled rocks behind the fig tree. Now it shrilled its terror and Marais could see the leopard. It appeared from the bush and took its insolent time. So vulnerable were the baboons that the leopard seemed to recognize no need for hurry. He crouched just below a little jutting cliff observing his prey and the problems of the terrain and Marais saw two male baboons edging along the cliff above him.
The two males moved cautiously; the leopard, if he saw them, ignored them. His attention was fixed on the swarming, screeching, defenseless horde scrambling among the rocks. The two males dropped. They dropped on him from the height of twelve feet. One bit at the leopard's spine. The other struck at his throat while clinging to his neck from below. In an instant the leopard disemboweled with his hind claws the baboon hanging to this neck and caught in his jaws the baboon on his back. But it was too late. The dying disemboweled baboon had hung on just long enough and had reached the leopard's jugular vein with his canines.
Marais watched while movement stilled beneath the little jutting cliff. Night fell. Death, hidden from all but the impartial stars, enveloped prey and predator alike and in the hollow places in the rocky, looming krans, a society of animals settled down to sleep.

[Robert Ardry, African Genesis (N.Y., Atheneum Publishers, 1961) p. 81.]

For my first experiment with this story, to give it a hard test, I walked into a Navy training room in Saigon and approached a group of sailors who were on a smoking break. Speaking above their casual conversations, I interrupted: "Hey fellows, let me read you something. I want to know what you say it represents."

I read the account slowly, with emphasis, looking up after each line or two observing their reactions. It was working as far as capturing their attention was concerned. There was that wonderful rapt attention when something is captivating. They had even stopped their cigarette puffing. When I finished reading, I looked up, observed their expressions, which remained attentive, and asked, "What is the moral of that story?"

There were a few seconds of thoughtful silence but no bewilderment. Finally, a young man, in his own picturesque words, confidently stated the account's self-sacrificing species-preserving meaning.

The next two formal trials, the next day, were equally rewarding.

The only little drawback I saw in teaching the point was the considerable delay required for the members of an audience to process the meaning of the story and state it. A few weeks later, while working with some poorly educated men who were assigned to a hard-labor task, I read the account and again asked: "What is the moral of that story?"

To my surprise, there was no hesitancy this time. One young fellow shot his hand right out to speak and exclaimed: "The moral of that story is clear; don't screw around with those baboons."

After the laughter, I realized that I was not asking quite the right question. I changed it from then on to ask: "What basic characteristic of all life, animal and human, does that story illustrate?"

To complete the lesson, we learned, one must add and ask: "Of course, those were animals, acting out of instinct. Do we human beings possess a similar self-risking instinct-like inclination even though it is ultimately controllable by reason?" (There are always quick head-nodding approvals.)

We add, Answer in your own mind these questions:

- Would you risk or give your life to save your loved ones or members of your group?

- Further, do you think the religious leaders are right in asserting that we humans could develop an empathy that would include other races and all of humankind in our circle of loved ones or in our emotionally protected human groups?