PLACE OF INSTINCTS IN OUR SOCIAL LIFE 649 



instinct and intelligence displayed in behaviour. It is a mistake, however, 

 to assume that the great use man makes of intelligence puts him on a wholly 

 separate plane. For in his fundamental psychological make-up, he is in the 

 same category as the other animals. That it is possible to overlook that 

 fact is due mainly to the development which has by now relegated the basic 

 motive powers of his life to the background of his consciousness. The 

 cave-man is nothing more than an exceptional element in modern society ; 

 the mass of men have emotions and feelings which are compounded in 

 various ways from the elemental psychological structure which man has in 

 common with the other animals. The strength of some of the elements in 

 this structure has ensured the continual progress of man in the direction of 

 more complicated social relationships ; and this progress has at the same 

 time been accompanied by the gradual covering-up of the more egoistic 

 tendencies. 



When we see animals behave as if they were subject to some apparently 

 mechanical laws, and when we realise that the behaviour of men in most 

 respects springs from similar sources, we are inclined to ask what is the 

 nature of these motive powers which impel men to think and act and feel, 

 and in what ways do they operate in our complex modern society. It is 

 clear that the conduct of man is regulated by many considerations affecting 

 his relations with his fellow-men, or in other words, that he is by no means 

 a free agent, giving full play to every impulse that prompts to action. The 

 important fact, however, is that the impulses are there ; and it is when we 

 come to ask what they are, what is their number and kind, that we are 

 faced with the problem of defining an instinct. 



We shall proceed best by taking an example. Suppose a man to be 

 suddenly struck by another so that pain is inflicted. If we examine the 

 reactions of the man who is struck, we shall find that the blood rushes tq his 

 face, that the circulation generally is quickened, and that — except, of course, 

 in cases where he is rendered unconscious — the whole body immediately 

 assumes a defensive or an antagonistic attitude. Now, in such a case as 

 this, there can be no possibility of arguing that the reaction, or the state 

 of mind caused by the blow, is the result of deliberation. The effects indi- 

 cated follow without conscious interference on the part of the man who 

 exhibits them. Here, then, we seem to have arrived at something that man 

 has the capacity to do without first learning how to do it, without experience. 

 Such a reaction as that described above is thus apparently part of the 

 original endowment of human beings, part of the inheritance of the race ; 

 and the capacity, or the thing inherited, does not vitally change from one 

 generation to another. 



On further examination, we can separate three distinct experiences in 

 the total experience we have described above. First of all, there is the 

 sensation of the blow, and the realisation that another man is offensively 

 disposed. Secondly, there is the emotional state, which is the bodily dis- 

 turbance (the quickened circulation and so on), and which we call the 

 emotion of anger. Lastly, there is the impulse to act, to retaliate on the 

 aggressor. On further analysis, we should find some important distinctions 

 in the operation of these three parts. We should find, for example, that 

 the emotion of anger may be actually roused without blows. It may be 

 roused, for instance, on a man learning that some hurt has been done to a 

 nccir relative or friend. The mere relation of the fact that an assault has 

 been made on a man's wife will be sufficient for him to experience all the 

 bodily disturbances we have described above, and even to seek to express 

 his impulse by an attack on the offender. We thus see that the emotion of 

 anger may be roused by direct or by indirect offence ; and the ways in 

 which the indirect method may take effect are extremely varied . Men become 

 angry at an implied insult to their own characters, at hurt or at the threat 



