tradition: the evidence of biology 



is eating, and \vith its performance the hunger drive is dis- 

 charged or worked off, and that particular episode of in- 

 stinctive activity comes to an end. 



Students of animal behaviour have described, analysed and 

 then pieced together again a great variety of different kinds of 

 instinctive action. Two conclusions which can be drawn from 

 their work, though both are negative, have a profound bearing 

 on human affairs. There is no such thing as an ''aggressive 

 instinct"*, and it is therefore altogether wrong to suppose that 

 human beings can be its victims or its beneficiaries. There is 

 no drive, no motive force in animal behaviour that is dis- 

 charged or gratified by the mere act of fighting. Fighting and 

 aggression — much of it bluff — do indeed play a part in animal 

 life, but they are entirely subsidiary or incidental to certain 

 other complex instincts. Males may fight in establishing their 

 mating territories, and fighting may play a part in seeking food 

 or in defence, but there is no such thing as an 'aggressive 

 instinct' in itself. There is simply an aggressive element in 

 several instincts, as there may well be an element of co-opera- 

 tion or mutual aid. There is equally no such thing as a 'social 

 instinct% no sort of inward compulsion that is set at rest 

 merely by getting together in groups; but co-operation is, as 

 fighting is, a component of several different kinds of instinctive 

 behaviour. 



Let me say just one other thing about the role of instinctive 

 activities in human conduct, using this quotation from Alfred 

 North Whitehead as a text: 



It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy 

 books, and by eminent people when they are making speeches, 

 that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are 

 doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances 

 by extending the number of important operations which we 

 can perform without thinking about them. 



This is a most important and arresting half-truth — so com- 



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