i6o ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 



With the evolution of the secondary gregarious urge the 

 inhibitions on individual behaviour originated. What an animal 

 might do for itself were no longer its sole motives since it tended 

 also to behave in the interests of the community. Activities 

 that might be advantageous to itself were not of advantage to 

 the community and vice versa. Thus the new urges, " ought 

 to " and " ought not to," developed. The inhibitions (so far 

 as man is concerned) were most clearly indicated in the monastic 

 vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Purely physiological 

 observations tend to support these conceptions. In Goltz's well- 

 known experiments dogs (which are animals with well- developed 

 communal urge) were made decerebrate, when the inhibitory 

 activity of the higher nervous centres was made impossible. 

 In this state they might behave with much of what we have 

 called normality, but their responses to stimuli tended to display 

 what we call " badness " — they would growl, bite and exhibit 

 displeasure and anger, but not such behaviour as would suggest 

 affection. That is, '' natural " modes of activity had become 

 inhibited by the gregarious and " domestic " habits of the 

 animals but were again apparent when the mental and anatomical 

 machinery of that inhibition had been destroyed. 



Mental conflict. '' Insanity " may be actual anatomical 

 abnormality resulting in the destruction of physical mechanisms 

 involving nervous centres and tracts. Perhaps also there is 

 abnormality of the mental operators, but to the conflict between 

 the primitive urges of self-preservation, individual nutrition, and 

 reproduction, on the one hand, and the inhibitions imposed on 

 behaviour by the communal urge, on the other hand, we may 

 trace mental aberration and distress. 



Beauty. Perhaps we may assume that the feeling of beauty 

 in natural things is elementary and not to be traced to any more 

 general feeling. Still very much of what we usually call " the 

 beautiful " is better to be called " elegance " and is to be traced 

 back to excess- value in fabrication. Thus a house might be 

 simply a rectangular stone box provided with apertures closed 

 by valves (doors and windows). It might be well ventilated 

 and warmed and, as such, would be a highly efficient shelter. 

 The motive in constructing a house is to provide such a shelter, 

 nevertheless there is much more in the good, modern house 

 than this. So also with dress, with weapons, tools and all the 



